Recently, a number of newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune, International Herald Tribune, Corriere della Sera in Italy and Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat published President Obama’s opinion editorial entitled: “A time for global action”.

As an African, I was deeply moved by this opinion editorial. President Obama stressed his country’s moral obligation to help the world’s most vulnerable people, at a time when his own nation is reeling from the devastating impact of the financial crisis.  The international leadership role of the United States in such turbulent times is paramount

The phrase ’moral obligation’ seems to have disappeared from political vocabulary, as if the concept was somehow old-fashioned. President Obama brings it back now at a moment when the human consequences of the financial crisis risk fostering inward-looking policies. 

As President of an international financial institution, IFAD, I know the challenges before us are immense. While it has fallen from the headlines, last year’s food crisis is far from over with an estimated 100 million more people in the developing world having been pushed into poverty and hunger. Now, the global recession risks exacerbating that, further undermining development progress and threatening the lives of  the most vulnerable – the 2 billion people - who depend for their existence on some 500 million smallholder farms.  For them, there is no bail-out plan in sight. 

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned that in the poorest nations, economic crisis could evolve into political crisis, triggering unrest and conflict. 

Taking a cue from President Obama’s commitment to support new and meaningful investments in food security, all parties - multilateral institutions, regional banks, UN agencies, national governments - must pull together swiftly to ensure credit flows and investment in agriculture as a priority. It is a proven fact that every dollar spent in agriculture is four times more effective in lifting people out of poverty than the same amount spent in other sectors. Investment in agriculture can help grow poor rural people out of the crisis, at while at the same time ensuring food security for a growing world population.

I shared these reflections with the Chicago Tribune .