Fund Donors Want Bigger Effort to Boost Farming in Poor Areas
Kathryn McConnell
America.gov
Oct 12, 2010
Washington — The United States and other donors to a new international agriculture-development fund will use World Bank/IMF meetings of finance ministers October 9–10 in Washington and a meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) heads of state in November in Seoul to ask other countries to contribute to the fund, which is being used to improve farming practices in low-income countries.
Called the Global Agricultural and Food Security Program, the fund thus far has collected pledges of $880 million — made up of $475 million from the United States, $230 million from Canada, $95 million from Spain, $50 million from South Korea, and $30 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The World Bank administers the fund.
In July, the fund committed $224 million to help five low-income countries improve their agricultural sectors, a senior U.S. Treasury official said. The recipient countries are Rwanda, Haiti, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Togo — all of which have designed national agricultural development plans and have committed some of their own resources to make the plans work. These first-round recipients received grants ranging between $35 million and $50 million.
Because all of the $880 million pledged has not yet been donated, but will be over several years, the fund today holds roughly $120 million. Meanwhile, a second group of 21 low-income countries has submitted agriculture development plans. Decisions about their requests for grants will be made in early November, according to Marisa Lago, the U.S. Treasury’s undersecretary for international markets and development.
Lago said donors will use upcoming international meetings to explain that these other deserving countries have feasible plans to improve their ability to grow enough food to feed their populations, plans that could be enacted if a greater donor base steps up. Lago spoke at a briefing October 5 at the State Department’s Foreign Press Center.
“Unless new donors come forward, we’re going to have to turn away … applications from countries that have done their agricultural development plans, firmed up their own budgetary support for agriculture,” Lago said.
The fund was created in January following commitments to promote “food security,” the ability for countries to reliably grow or provide food for their populations, made in 2009 by leaders of the G8 (leading industrial nations) and the G20 (leading industrial and developing nations). The World Bank administers the fund.
Decisions about which countries receive awards are made by a steering committee of an equal number of representatives from donor countries and recipient countries, Lago said. Senegal, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Mongolia and Haiti are recipient representatives.
The committee also is represented by two civil society groups: ActionAid, an international anti-poverty group, and the Network of Farmers’ and Agricultural Producers’ Organizations of West Africa, known as ROPPA, its French acronym.
“We believe that by coming together in a multilateral fund, we can increase the effectiveness of the funding. We don’t have fragmented funding from a multiplicity of donors,” Lago said. Donors are also encouraged to contribute their agricultural expertise to recipients.
Lago said the fund is meant to reverse the global trend over recent decades of reduced investments in agricultural development.
Countries are expected to use the funds on such agricultural sector improvements as teaching farmers improved production methods, importing better seeds, and developing or improving rural infrastructures so farmers can get their products to market.
Lago cited Rwanda, one of the first recipients, as an example. Between 2007 and 2009, Rwanda increased its investments in the agriculture sector 30 percent, she said.