The Majority is Left OutQuesta pagina non è stata tradotta in
italiano. As prices rise, many countries must spend larger
portions of their budgets on essential resources from abroad,
often forgoing expenditures on health, education, infrastructure
or other productive capacity building. People find it more
difficult to make ends meet. The socio-economic impact of
ecological overshoot, including climate change,
disproportionately affects the most vulnerable. Rising commodity
prices have increased the import bills of many countries. For
example, the FAO estimates that sub-Saharan African countries'
food import bill has increased to U.S. $39.6 billion in 2011, a
nearly 30 percent increase from the previous year. In 2012, the
IEA estimated that the world's total oil import bill was heading
toward a record U.S. $2 trillion The increasing import bills
will be a particular challenge for poor countries that are net
food and fuel importers. Indeed, the total cost of food and fuel
imports in 20 low-income countries is a