Economy US, Norway to launch Africa agriculture fund, commit $70 million

[LeonardoBjj]

By Daphne Psaledakis

Men load freshly harvested eggplants on a field of farmer Mor Kabe, on the outskirts of Notto Gouye Diama village, Thies region, Senegal, January 24, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights

NEW YORK, Sept 18 (Reuters) - The United States and Norway will pledge a total of $70 million on Monday to launch a fund, reported here for the first time, to help farmers and agricultural businesses in Africa, a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spokesperson said.

THE TAKE

Hunger has worsened in several regions of Africa, driven by armed conflict and extreme weather that scientists have linked to fossil fuel-driven climate change.

The announcement, by USAID Administrator Samantha Power and Norwegian Minister of International Development Beathe Tvinnereim on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, comes as Russia and China vie with the United States and Europe to win over developing countries.

BY THE NUMBERS

The fund aims to reach a total of $200 million through additional contributions from donors and has the potential to benefit nearly 7.5 million people, the spokesperson said.

USAID and Norway will each commit an initial $35 million. The fund has the potential to support 500 small- and medium-sized agricultural businesses, 1.5 million smallholder farmers and nearly 60,000 private sector jobs.

The fund aims to spur hundreds of millions more dollars in commercial financing by reducing the risk of investing.

CONTEXT

Famine in parts of the Horn of Africa was averted this year as the rainy season, projected to fail for a fifth consecutive year, beat expectations. But aid officials say some 60 million people are still food insecure in seven east African countries.

Millions in West Africa have faced food insecurity spurred by climate shocks, COVID-19 and high prices.

KEY QUOTES

"Without these smaller agribusinesses, Africa's smallholder farmers are growing just enough to feed themselves and their families," Power told Reuters in a statement.

"But connect them to a nursery that can supply them with quality seeds and fertilizer, a market where they can sell excess harvest, or a processor that can turn their crops into higher-value products, and suddenly they have a chance to take off, delivering the kind of agricultural growth we know is necessary to fight hunger and poverty."

https://www.reuters.com/markets/com...ca-agriculture-fund-commit-70-mln-2023-09-18/

 

[Libero cane v2]

Norwegian here- our commitment is approximately the price of a beer in Oslo, so I think we’re being a bit stingy here.

 

[Otto!]

Great initiative. It’s just sad to think of how much of that money will be lost to corrupt officials.

 

[BudKing8806]

Yea, it's not like we need the money, just send it on to Africa.

 

[Blayt7hh]

I hope it does some good. The suffering in those regions in the modern world is ridiculous

Yea, it's not like we need the money, just send it on to Africa.

You truly have a deep understanding of the world. A stable Africa benefits no one. Much better to let it continue on as fertile recruiting grounds for terrorists. You also don’t sound whiney at all.

 

[The Diplomat]

Yea, it's not like we need the money, just send it on to Africa.

This is a penny compared to what China and Russia are doing to destabilize, then take over parts of Africa.

 

[Poon Goon]

The farmer gets up before dawn each day to tend to the animals and take care of the crops. If he does that for long enough eventually he will become a very rich man if he strikes oil.

I heard that joke at a farmer's funeral this weekend and everyone thought it was very funny.

 

[BudKing8806]

I hope it does some good. The suffering in those regions in the modern world is ridiculous

You truly have a deep understanding of the world. A stable Africa benefits no one. Much better to let it continue on as fertile recruiting grounds for terrorists. You also don’t sound whiney at all.

Your mama sounds whiny when I plug her asshole. You know nothing about me.

 

[BudKing8806]

This is a penny compared to what China and Russia are doing to destabilize, then take over parts of Africa.

Don't care. I'd rather put the money towards junky homeless folks in our cities and I wouldn't be thrilled about that either.

 

[Renard]

This was first announced by the USAID director at the 2023 WEF meeting in Davos back in January. First red flag. USAID is calling this the "EDGE" fund. Here's the list of things this fund is supposedly meant to do:

The fund will help USAID and partners generate sustainable, high-impact public-private partnerships to tackle the climate crisis, deliver gender equality, drive economic growth, and address other key priorities.
[...]
The following list of planned activities are among the first projects slated to receive resources through the EDGE Fund:

• Green Guarantee Company: Along with the UK Government, the Green Climate Fund, and Prosper Africa, we plan to provide seed funding for the world’s first credit guarantor dedicated to climate solutions in the developing world, systematically de-risk and effectively unlock scale-level private investments in climate solutions through the power of global capital markets. Starting with some of the largest emerging economies such as Brazil and India to economies such as Rwanda and Tanzania, and small island developing states such as Trinidad and Tobago, we are helping to issue green bonds and loans in emerging and frontier markets, and equipping borrowers to acquire climate resilient infrastructure.
• Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation: We anticipate providing additional resources to facilitate trade in burgeoning democracies like Zambia, Malawi, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic to address multiple challenges around corruption, economic growth, and market expansion.
• Barbados Blue-Green Bank: With USAID funding and seed funding available from the EDGE Fund, along with co-funding from the Government of Barbados and the Green Climate Fund, we plan to establish a regional financing vehicle to finance projects that will help with climate change mitigation and adaptation, including resilient housing, renewable energy, green transportation, and water conservation.
• Madre de Dios Sustainable Landscapes Initiative: In Peru, we will be supporting ecotourism and shoring up our commitment to locally relevant and sustainable economic growth avenues. With partners Inkaterra Peru and the Smithsonian Center for Conservation and Sustainability, along with Peruvian businesses, we are raising private capital to develop a 200,000 acre sustainable biodiversity corridor in an area facing some of the highest levels of deforestation and illegal gold mining in the Amazon.
• Countering Transnational Corruption Grand Challenge: We plan to double the size of USAID’s initial investment in the Countering Transnational Corruption Grand Challenge to help co-invest in game-changing tools, technology, and approaches that prevent corrupt actors from siphoning off critical resources that should be used for the public good.

Now that you have a headache from the platitude word salad and feel like giving up (the intended effect, I'm sure), notice something? Almost not a word about food production, feeding people, fostering independence. In fact, it's not even mentioned as something the fund intends to do! It's almost all about building control infrastructure for the climate change scam. The only food-related word that pops up is "seed", patented GMO seeds that make you legally liable and dependent on the biotech corporation providing it, I'm sure.

Starting in the 1960s and to the late 1980s, USAID funded horrific sterilization campaigns abroad. Billions in taxpayer money was laundered through various private international agencies with no US oversight. USAID and World Bank funding was made dependent on sterilization quotas. Desperate and heavily indebted nations found the bargain difficult to refuse. The director of the "Office of Population" bought huge quantities of unproven, unapproved, defective, or banned contraceptive drugs and intrauterine devices (IUDs) and distributed them for use by his population control movement subcontractors on millions of unsuspecting women in the third world, many of whom suffered or died in consequence. At home, USAID managed to sterilize 30% of Native American and Puerto Rican women by 1977, always never giving informed consent. Women would go to the hospital for an related surgery and would discover upon leaving that they had been sterilized while they were under. Last we heard of USAID, they were funding the Wuhan lab.

People need to stop being so naive. These people are evil, they've always been evil. It always becomes obvious to anyone who makes the slightest effort to peel the veneer of empty platitudes and look at what's underneath.

 

[muhammadgoatli]

as our veterans sleep on the streets and eat out of dumpsters... story checks out

 

[Blayt7hh]

Your mama sounds whiny when I plug her asshole. You know nothing about me.

Well now I know you’re a clown

 

[BudKing8806]

Well now I know you’re a clown

 

[ShadowRun]

The homeless vets could use the help but if the money is actually able to help them there that’s good too .

 

[Topguntrophey]

Suspect as this doesn't help the military industrial complex so then it must be a hand out and I have to say that we have to many folks of our own to take care of (even if we played in other countries backyards) and they should take care of themselves (even though we have a history of jerking around a lot of countries in the name of "liberty").

Can't this money just go to Ukraine instead?

 

[The Diplomat]

Don't care. I'd rather put the money towards junky homeless folks in our cities and I wouldn't be thrilled about that either.

Sounds like you're conflicted, bud.

 

[The Diplomat]

The homeless vets could use the help but if the money is actually able to help them there that’s good too .

The vet issue is rather complex. Is everyone a vet after boot camp? Four years? Do we give monthly checks to every member who served "something/everything"? Nothing to the people who served and didn't see combat? Ideally we could do it all, and it would be factored into the defense budget and be paid for. But...it's complex.

 

[Michaelangelo]

Lol at 70M
not even enough to cover one F35

 

[ShadowRun]

The vet issue is rather complex. Is everyone a vet after boot camp? Four years? Do we give monthly checks to every member who served "something/everything"? Nothing to the people who served and didn't see combat? Ideally we could do it all, and it would be factored into the defense budget and be paid for. But...it's complex.

It is complexed but should be tackle with the focus and aggression we do for a lot of things out there.. As far as a vet
The term "veteran" means a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable

 

[ocfightfan]

I hope it helps.