U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday welcomed the World Bank's $1.2 billion contribution for a “financing facility” to combat the global food-price crisis, his office said. Ban called the move “an important step in providing quick support to those most affected by the current food security crisis,” the secretary-general's office said. “This and other initiatives to respond to the food-security situation, closely coordinated between the United Nations system, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, are intended to provide a coherent response in the short, medium and long term, " Ban's office said. The World Bank on Thursday announced its $1.2 billion contribution for a facility to quickly respond to the food-price crisis and made an additional $200 million contribution in grants to poor and vulnerable countries. The U.N. World Food Program has called the global food price crisis “a silent tsunami threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger.”
