A/HRC/9/23 page 34 through these agencies’ activities, between governments. Initiatives were adopted both at the operational and political levels. On 28-29 April 2008, the Executive Heads of the UN specialized agencies (including the Bretton-Woods institutions), funds and programmes and the World Trade Organisation, gathered in Bern in order to agree on a common strategy. The Chief Executives Board agreed on the need to address the crisis through short-term measures (including through the emergency programme launched by the WFP and by supporting developing country farmers for the next harvests), but also through short-to-medium term measures (including support for the establishment of safety nets and income generation programmes, and to countries experiencing balance of payments difficulties as a result of higher food and oil prices), medium-to-long term measures (including support for improved agricultural decision-making to boost production and productivity), and long-term measures (including further research on the impact of diversion of food crops towards agrofuel production and support for agriculture in Africa). Many of these components of the responses to the global food crisis were already contained in the “New Deal for a Global Food Policy” proposed on 13 April 2008 by the president of the World Bank Group, and endorsed by the Development Committee of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The Bern meeting reinforced inter-agency cooperation, in particular by setting up a High Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis (HLTF), which held its first meeting on 12 May 2008 and launched work on a “Comprehensive Framework for Action” (CFA). A first draft of the CFA was presented at the High-Level Conference on World Food Security held at the FAO headquarters in Rome on 3-5 June. 15. The CFA was finalized in mid-July. It is best described as a menu of actions, to be adapted according to national specificities, which the UN agencies and the Bretton-Woods institutions have identified as constituting the best response to the global food crisis. Two sets of immediate actions are listed. One aims at meeting the immediate needs of the vulnerable populations by improving access to food and nutrition support and increasing food availability. This translates not only into measures of a humanitarian nature, but also into actions to boost smallholder farmer-led food production, and trade and tax measures such as the use of strategic grain reserves to lower prices. Another set of actions, also to be launched immediately, aims at building longer-term resilience and contributing to global food and nutrition security, by expanding social protection systems; sustaining the growth of smallholder farmer food production; improving international food markets; and developing an international consensus on agrofuels. In addition, a third set of actions aims at establishing better global information and monitoring systems, particularly by better coordinating existing information systems and by developing the practice of comprehensive assessments and monitoring. 16. The contribution of the World Bank has been significant. On 29 May, the Bank launched the Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP), which aims to facilitate a rapid and flexible response of the Bank to the crisis, by (i) reducing the negative impact of high and volatile food prices on the poor, (ii) supporting countries in designing sustainable policies that mitigate the adverse impacts of high and volatile prices on poverty while minimizing long-term market distortions, and (iii) supporting efforts to increase productivity in agriculture as well as market participation to ensure an adequate and sustainable food supply response. It includes a facility drawing on a variety of funding sources, including a new multidonor trust fund, with a total authorized ceiling of US$ 1.2 billion.