Washington - Surging food and fuel prices are quickly leading the world's poorest countries into a "danger zone" that severely threatens their economic development, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said Wednesday ahead of the Group of Eight summit in Japan next week.

Zoellick said about 10 billion dollars were needed to address current food shortages and urged the G8 industrial economies to step up their overall aid commitments at the gathering, in a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

"What we are witnessing is not a natural disaster - a silent tsunami of a perfect storm. It is a man-made catastrophe, and as such must be fixed by people," Zoellick said.

More than 40 countries were receiving hits to economic growth of between 3 and 10 per cent as a result of food and fuel prices that have more than doubled in the last couple of years, the World Bank said, while 30 countries have suffered social unrest.

"These numbers translate into broken lives and stunted potential," Zoellick said in the letter. "We are entering a danger zone."

Zoellick also called for developed countries to bolster standing food stocks - similar to existing strategic petroleum reserves - to give humanitarian authorities access to a larger pool of resources in the case of future shocks to the system.

"This is a test of the global system to help the most vulnerable, and it can't afford to fail," he said. (dpa)