Other than in China, where the reduction in poverty has been spectacular, progress in poverty reduction in the world during the past three decades has been modest. This slow progress and the decline in infl uence of the Washington Consensus has prompted new thinking on poverty and its reduction.

Global food prices continue to rise month after month, driven by longer-term and more recent trends. Financialisation is an important factor among the recent trends. There is strong evidence of correlation among the markets for different financial assets, including stocks/shares, commodities and currencies. Falling asset prices in other financial market segments may thus be more important for explaining the recent surge in food prices than supply constraints or changing demand and other factors underlying longer-term gradual upward price trends.

The global food price spikes of 2008 should not have come as a surprise. There were a number of long-term trends that were working towards the surge in food prices, which was fi nally occasioned by some proximate causes. While global prices have eased since then