G8 zegt steun toe voor voedselvoorziening arme landen (en)
Leaders from the Group of Eight industrialised nations are set to pledge up to $15 billion (€10.75bn) on Friday (10 July), in order to help the world's poorest countries develop their agricultural sectors.
However the final funding for the "L'Aquila Food Security Initiative" may fall short on earlier promises of $15 billion, instead coming in closer to $12 billion (€8.6bn).
The emphasis of the new fund will be on helping people feed themselves through greater investment in agriculture in developing countries, as opposed to direct food aid from richer countries, a model that has dominated in the past.
The money will go towards irrigation projects, seeds and grain storage, amongst other things, in a bid to reduce poverty and hunger in the developing world, parts of which saw major riots last year as a result of higher food prices.
Before leaving for Italy, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso i told journalists the aim was to go further than just creating self-sufficiency in the developing world.
We are "trying to help Africa feed the world," he said of the US initiative.
G8 leaders have in the past come in for criticism for failing to live up to earlier pledges, especially aid targets agreed at a G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005.
"Some member states are not fulfilling their commitments [under Gleneagles]," said Mr Barroso.
In particular, Italy and France have been criticized by the anti-poverty group One, led by Bob Geldof and U2's Bono, for failing to meet the Gleneagles promise to double aid to Africa by 2010.
NGOs in general are sceptical about the new funding, fearing it may simply be old money repackaged in a new format.
"Aid figures are notoriously opaque but latest intelligence suggests so far only the US and Spain are coming up with serious new money," said One spokeswoman Helen Palmer, reports the Guardian.
Climate
Before discussing the food security fund on Friday afternoon, G8 leaders are due to sit down with their African counterparts for a working breakfast to discuss the impact of the economic crisis on developing nations.
Their digestion may be hindered by the knowledge that the number of people living in poverty and suffering from hunger recently rose above 1 billion as a result of the crisis.
The failure to get developing countries to sign up to climate change targets on Thursday is also unlikely to have buoyed the leaders' spirits.
While both sides agreed that global temperatures rises should be limited to 2C on pre-industrial levels, developing countries refused to sign up to targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050.
On the first day of the meeting, G8 leaders – whose countries have been the main causers of climate change – agreed to cut their own emission levels by 80 percent over the same time period in order to reach the 50 percent global target.
However developing countries such as China and India are holding out for firm commitments of financial support from rich nations to help them fight the effects of climate change and install new technologies to reduce their emission levels.
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