•  Diana Conyers  is Research Officer at Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, teaches Governance and Development and writes on decentralisation, empowerment and democracy, primarily in Southern Africa;
  

• Graham Harrison, is Senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield. Recently he published the volume The World Bank and Africa: the Construction of Governance States London: Routledge, 2004;
  
  
• Richard Crook is Professor and Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, teaches Globalization and Development and is the author of The law, legal institutions and the protection of land rights in Ghana and Côte d´Ivoire, IDS, University of Sussex, 2007.   

Davos, Switzerland - The spectacular rise of China and India coupled with a decline in US influence has prompted heated debate in Davos this year over possible scenarios for a new world order.

While the United States remains the undisputed military superpower, experts participating in the annual gathering of the world's political and business elite have highlighted its waning ability to set the global agenda on its own.

And with the UN Security Council struggling to provide a consensus on just about any major issue, the question of what nation, group of nations or international institution could command a leading role on the future world stage was floated to a widely varying response.

The only real point of agreement was that the current fluidity in the balance of world power carries a serious threat of instability and conflict, as well as concerns over how to build an effective international response to extreme abuses of power such as acts of genocide or ethnic cleansing.

"We don't live in a multi-polar world, we live in a non-polar world," said John Chipman, director general of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Read the full article: Searching for a new world order in Davos

Ban said he will hold the first meeting of his recently formed United Nations task force on food next Monday.

He also said he is sending invitations to all world leaders to join him at a high-level meeting to work out a strategy for addressing food shortages and soaring prices. The conference, organized by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, will be June 3-5 in Rome.

"This crisis did not come out of the blue," Ban told reporters. "It grew out of more than a decade of neglect and ineffective development policies. We need a new start."

While there have been "promising steps" in recent days to deal with emergency food needs, the entire U.N. system needs to lead and act together "to boost agricultural development, particularly in Africa and other regions most affected," he said.

The secretary-general said he is urging government leaders not to adopt measures that distort international trade in food and push up prices. He also called for immediate action to get seeds and fertilizer to small farmers.

Ban was asked about criticism from President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, who urged the U.N. on Sunday to dismantle the FAO, calling it an ineffective money-eater that he blamed for most of the current food crisis.

While expressing sympathy for the frustrations of Wade and other African leaders, Ban defended the FAO, saying the agency has led international efforts since 1945 to promote agricultural productivity and humanitarian assistance to people affected by food shortages.

Read the full article: UN chief says he is moving `at full speed' on food crisis