(Adds anti-poverty campaigners' criticism, paragraphs 12-17) By Kwasi Kpodo ACCRA, Sept 4 (Reuters) - High fuel and food prices are threatening millions with poverty and the world needs to find more flexible and effective ways of delivering aid to fight this "double jeopardy", the World Bank president said on Thursday. Robert Zoellick told a conference that channelling aid through the national budgets of recipient nations, supporting their capacity to handle it and promoting a dynamic private sector were all ways of improving development assistance. "It's common sense that we have to make aid work better," Zoellick said, speaking at a High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness being held in Accra, Ghana, and attended by development experts, ministers and senior officials. The World Bank chief said sharp increases in global food and fuel prices had complicated efforts to reduce poverty. "It is double jeopardy (that) fuel and food prices could push a 100 million people back to poverty, thereby reversing the efforts of we the people in this room," Zoellick said. "This problem of malnutrition, accentuated by high food prices, is not going to go away soon, so the (United Nations) World Food Programme and others are going to need more flexible and more predictable food assistance," he added. He called for the lifting of export bans on food imposed by some countries, saying this was hampering the WFP's ability to obtain food quickly to respond to humanitarian needs. Critics say the effectiveness of more than $100 billion of international aid that is channelled to the developing world each year is often undermined and obstructed by bureaucratic bottlenecks, delays, overlapping and political interests. Concerns about corruption and the squandering of aid, especially in weak states in Africa, have also triggered debate about how much donor governments should try to maintain control and oversight over their aid programmes. Recipient countries insist the aid must follow their own development strategies. The Ghana aid meeting ended on Thursday with the adoption of an Accra Agenda for Action spelling out ways in which delivery of international aid can be made more effective. AID IMPROVEMENTS "SCUPPERED" But some anti-poverty campaigners said the meeting failed to deliver concrete reforms to make international aid more efficient and transparent. They say their demands for an end to practices such as using aid to buy donor goods and services and removing conditions attached to aid have long been ignored by rich donors. UK-based charity ActionAid accused the United States, Japan and the World Bank of blocking immediate improvements in aid effectiveness, saying hopes for progress "were scuppered by back room deals dominated by donor countries." "It is disgraceful that powerful countries have denied the poor a chance to benefit from better aid," ActionAid spokesperson Wole Olaleye said in a statement. Noting the Ghana talks were convened by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which groups the world's developed economies, Olaleye added: "Future aid negotiations cannot be run by a rich country club". In his speech, Zoellick backed the idea of most development aid being channelled through national budgets of receiving countries. It was critical that governments receiving assistance took a "driving seat" in shaping development projects, he said. Creating a dynamic, efficient private sector was also key to achieving sustainable, inclusive development, Zoellick said. "Governments need to free markets to be able to work for the development of their people. They need to make it easier and safer to do business and by doing so they can foster the best results from aid," he told the conference. (Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Workers unload boxes with food aid at the airport in Nueva Gerona on the Isle of Youth September 2, 2008. Television reports showed widespread devastation on the island, which has about ...
