5. The first line of action is to respond urgently to requests for assistance from affected countries: a) The relevant United Nations agencies should be assured the resources to expand and enhance their food assistance and support safety net programmes to address hunger and malnutrition, when appropriate, through the use of local or regional purchase; b) The appropriate regional organizations which have emergency food security arrangements should enhance their cooperation with a view to effectively cope with soaring food prices; c) All efforts by governmental and non-governmental organizations to strengthen immediate humanitarian and development assistance should be synergized with those of the multilateral organizations, and made coherent, to deal with the continuum from urgent to longer term assistance; d) All national and international efforts should be made to ensure that international emergency food assistance is delivered as quickly and efficiently as possible to populations in distress; e) To facilitate adjustment to higher food prices, donors and international financial institutions, in accordance with their mandates and in consultation with recipient countries, should provide in a timely manner, balance of payments support and /or budget support to food-importing, low-income countries. Other measures should be considered as necessary to improve the financial situation of the countries in need, including reviewing debt servicing as necessary. We also call on the relevant international institutions to simplify the eligibility procedures of existing financial mechanisms to support agriculture and environment. 6. trade. The second line of action is immediate support for agricultural production and a) All relevant organizations and cooperating countries should be prepared to assist countries, on their request, to put in place the revised policies and measures to help farmers, particularly small-scale producers, increase production and integrate with local, regional, and international markets. Southsouth cooperation must be encouraged; b) Development partners are invited to participate in and contribute to international and regional initiatives on soaring food prices and, in particular, under the FAO initiative launched on 17 December 2007, in support of countryled measures to give farmers in low-income food-deficit and the most affected countries access to appropriate locally adapted seeds, fertilizers, animal feed and other inputs, as well as technical assistance, in order to increase agricultural production; c) Development partners are called upon to undertake initiatives to moderate unusual fluctuations in the food grain prices. In particular, we call on relevant