Weak governance and failure to adopt better sustainable policies at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, beginning next week, could lead to an increase in poverty, social unrest and a lower quality of life for all, the World Bank warned yesterday.
The World Bank's latest annual development report, released in Washington, calls for greater co-operation at local, national and global levels to allow for a sharing of the burdens of development.
In particular it recommends an end to agricultural subsidies in developed countries arguing that developing countries rely on agriculture for one-third of their economic output.
Mr Nicholas Stern, the World Bank chief economist, said the world's governments "must act to help its poorest people manage their own resources and build their productivity and incomes now, to empower these communities and help them prepare for the demands of the decades ahead.
"Rich countries," he added, "can take such a step by opening their markets to developing world exports and by abandoning agricultural subsidies and other barriers to trade that depress prices and limit market opportunities for the very goods that poor people produce most competitively."
Mr Jacques Paul Eckebil, an assistant director-general at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, said the economic pressures on farmers in the developing world caused by restricted access to developed countries' markets, have resulted in farmers producing crops using low-cost and unsustainable methods.
However, a deal to reduce or eliminate agricultural subsidies and tariffs is unlikely without the support of the EU which is responsible for almost 90 per cent of the the world's subsidised agriculture.
Last month the US State Department announced it wished to engage in negotiations with the EU.
Along with opening their markets to the developing world, the report urged rich countries to increase the flow of aid, medicines, and new technologies to developing countries.