LEADERS FROM the group of eight major economies (G8) will today pledge up to $15 billion (€10.8 billion) to promote sustainable farming in poor countries.
The money will be spent on seeds, fertilisers, grain storage and irrigation projects to try to provide a long-term solution to the problems of extreme poverty and hunger in the developing world.
The proposed new food security fund is a US initiative that aims to shift the emphasis from emergency food aid to more sustainable investments such as smallholder farms in Africa and elsewhere.
“The combined effect of longstanding underinvestment in agriculture and food security, price trends and the economic crisis have led to increased hunger and poverty in developing countries, plunging a further 100 million people into extreme poverty,” says a G8 statement to be published today.
US president Barack Obama is expected to announce that the US will provide between $3-4 billion to the fund. Japan is likely to donate the same amount as the US and Europe will also contribute to the “L’Aquila Food Security Initiative”.
Emerging states will also be invited to donate to the fund, which the G8 says will not undermine a commitment to food aid.
“Agriculture is the engine of growth for the developing world. This could provide an opportunity for developing countries to free themselves from a reliance on food aid,” said Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agriculture Development – a UN agency that invests in farming projects all across the developing world, including in Africa.
The number of people living in poverty and suffering from hunger recently rose above one billion as a result of the economic crisis.
Steep rises in food prices last year also contributed to serious food riots in different parts of the world and have focused world attention on the importance of food security.
Several African leaders joined G8 leaders in the Italian town of L’Aquila last night to discuss the initiative over dinner and further talks are scheduled today.
Experts in the development field have praised the growing shift away from emergency aid to food security. But non government organisations are cautious about the announcement of yet another plan to help Africa by the world richest states.
One, the anti-poverty group led by Bono and Bob Geldof, has strongly criticised Italy and France for breaking a pledge to double aid to Africa by 2010 at a G8 summit in Scotland in 2005. It claims just $ 7 billion of the $21 billion pledged by G8 countries has so far been committed.
“What the world’s poorest people need now is not a re-cooking of old promises or yet more plans. They need immediate action,” One’s Europe director Oliver Buston told journalists at the G8 summit.
In separate discussions on climate change yesterday at the G8 the big developing countries such as China and India failed to sign up to any pledge to cut global emissions by 50 per cent by 2050.
They want developed states to first pledge hundreds of billions of euro in aid to help them cope with the effects of climate change and to introduce new technology to cut emissions.
The 17 biggest greenhouse gas emitters followed the G8 states in signing up to try to limit the increase in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius.
But the failure to get any commitment on curbing emissions from developing states prompted criticism from UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon. He said progress at the talks was “not enough”, saying climate change was a “historic responsibility”.
Mr Obama, who chaired yesterday’s talks on climate change at his first G8 summit, called on developing states to do more to cut emissions.