So, sure, there’s no less glamorous kind of foreign aid than chilies, irrigation pumps and mud silos. But if this kind of assistance can help end famine and emergency aid, and if it can send kids to college, then let’s celebrate boring aid!
…In order to close this gap in the short-term, donor countries must fulfill the UN’s appeal for humanitarian aid and link emergency aid with development assistance. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, Congress has the opportunity to make changes to the Farm Bill that would allow U.S. food assistance to reach 6 million more people with the same amount of funding.
Syngenta’s business plan fits this mold, as we’re committing to invest a total of $500 million over the next 10 years to transform African agriculture with shared knowledge, tools, technologies and services. Our aim is to develop a $1 billion business by 2022, with some 700 additional employees—many of whom will be field advisors trained in agronomy—to bring innovative and sustainable methods to more than five million African farmers, enabling them to increase their productivity by 50% or more. Our priority countries for developing these partnerships are Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania.
At the L’Aquila summit, President Barack Obama, then relatively new to the world stage, rallied his fellow leaders of the world’s richest nations to make a promise: If poor countries came up with good plans to help poor farmers grow more and earn more, rich countries would help make it happen. The initiative included a $22 billion financial pledge over three years and a commitment to use the Rome Principles to guide those investments.
Your parents keep telling you to finish your dinner because “there are starving kids in Africa.” Well, there are a lot of myths about why people in Africa go hungry, as well as false ideas behind the solutions. We asked the ONE Campaign to clarify. Below, the top 11 myths regarding agriculture in Africa.
