"In our view the best way is to try to help the poor by direct income support, targeted safety nets like food-for-work programmes, and to avoid general subsidies which waste resources and don't help the poor," Strauss-Kahn told African finance ministers and central bankers at a meeting in Mauritania.

Many African governments have suspended import duty on staple foods or cut other taxes for all citizens in recent months in an effort to help their economies absorb sharp rises in prices for food and fuel.

Price rises are a worldwide phenomenon arising from record high oil prices, unusual weather conditions in some key agricultural regions, rising food consumption in Asia and increased use of land and food crops for biofuels.

But they have hit poor Africans harder than most, given that food and transport make up a higher proportion of household spending on the poorest continent.

Strauss-Kahn said improvements in African infrastructure and trade were needed to alleviate the effects of the food crisis.

"For food, an increase in supply is needed, but production is not enough. We need to be able to carry what has been produced from one country to another," he said.

"The failure of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) talks is not good news," he said, referring to this week's collapse of world trade talks in Geneva, the latest setback to the Doha round of negotiations launched in 2001 in part to address the needs of developing countries.