WASHINGTON: World Bank President David Malpass said the world is facing a "human disaster" as a result of Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine.

Malpass told the BBC on Wednesday that if the war continues, food costs will skyrocket, pushing hundreds of millions of people into poverty and putting them at risk of malnutrition. "It's a human crisis, which means that nutrition suffers." But it also poses a political dilemma for governments who are powerless to intervene because they did not trigger the rise in pricing.

"The World Bank estimates a massive 37% increase in food prices, which will be amplified for the poor, who would eat less and have less money for other things like schooling." As a result, it's a particularly unjust form of catastrophe. It has the greatest impact on the poorest people. He went on to say, "That was also true of Covid." The World Bank director told the BBC that the "wide and deep" price increases were "affecting food of all kinds oils, grains, and then it comes into other crops, corn crops, because they go up when wheat goes up."

Despite the fact that the world has enough food to feed everyone and global stockpiles are huge by historical standards, he warned that food will have to be shared or sold to get to where it is required.

Malpass also warned of a potential "crisis inside a crisis" resulting from developing countries' incapacity to service their enormous pandemic loans in the face of rising food and energy prices.

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