ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a series of dramatic flashes from the riots that erupted around the world in late 2007/2008, prompted by a food price crisis that was only symptomatic of deep structural problems that are with us still. The notion of global governance, something that would somehow move beyond international diplomacy of the Westphalian nation-state variety, is rooted in this era. Explicitly political in its essence, it represented a rallying cry for a radical transformation of world order. The chapter convinced that the international community needs to take urgent and coordinated action to combat the negative impacts of soaring food prices on the world's most vulnerable countries and populations. The most significant were the UN high-level task force on the Food Security Crisis (HLTF), the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security (GPAFS), and the reform of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS).
