A/HRC/9/23 page 22 (b) Encouraging social safety nets by establishing a global reinsurance fund 44. While necessary, acting on prices alone is not sufficient. In addition, in order to boost supply, agricultural producers need to be supported through public programmes improving their ability to produce, and countries need to be able to protect their population from the impact of the increased volatility of food prices. Indeed, the FAO Right to Food Guidelines recommend that States establish and maintain social and food-safety nets to protect those who are unable to provide for themselves. But uncertainty about possible future shocks to their economies is a major disincentive for poor countries to establish robust social-safety nets, since they know their fiscal resources may be strained as a result of adverse shocks brutally increasing the needs of the population. In order to address this problem, the establishment of a global reinsurance fund has been proposed, providing insurance to poor countries against sudden shocks, whether of internal or of external origin, leading to rising demands for social support in ways that might not be fiscally sustainable for the countries concerned.48 (c) The role of international trade 45. There have been calls for further progress on trade liberalization - and, more precisely, on the swift completion of the Doha round of negotiations within the World Trade Organization as part of the answers to the crisis. However, not any agreement will do. As noted in the Comprehensive Framework for Action, the international trade system needs to be equitable if it is to contribute to the objective of food security. There are strong arguments for the view that precipitate and inequitable trade liberalization in agriculture, following the prescriptions of the international financial institutions in the 1980s, is among the reasons for the lack of development of the agricultural sector in certain developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa: in addition to being heavily taxed by Governments through a combination of exchange rate manipulation, parastatal monopolies in processing and trading and government price setting, local farmers were weakened by severely distorted competition from abroad. The Uruguay round of trade negotiations leading to the establishment of the World Trade Organization and the conclusion of the agreement on agriculture did little to remedy this, and it is still uncertain whether the round of negotiations launched in Doha in November 2001 will offer satisfactory answers, as called for by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development São Paulo Consensus.49 Indeed, given that larger agricultural producers are in general better positioned to benefit from the opportunities created by trade liberalization, since they can more easily adapt to the volumes and standards requirements imposed by global food buyers and retailers, there is a real risk that export-led agricultural development will further marginalize the position of smallholders, worsening their food insecurity instead of improving it. 48 Sanjay G. Reddy, ‘Safety Nets for the Poor: A Missing International Dimension?’ in Giovanni Andrea Cornia (ed), Pro-Poor Macroeconomics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 144-165, here at 160. 49 TD/410, 25 June 2004, para. 75.