By QueenEsther Iroanusi
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $1.4 billion to help smallholder farmers fight the impacts of climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The foundation’s Chief Executive Officer, Mark Suzman, revealed the donation at the ongoing COP27 Climate Change Summit in Egypt.
“Today, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation echoed African leaders’ calls for countries to rapidly scale up finance for climate adaptation,” the Foundation said in a statement.
The pledge comes a week after the United Nations declared that the world is currently plummeting down a “climate highway to hell”.
Richer nations, it has said, are not doing enough to assist poorer countries withstand the effects of global warming.
By 2030, it has been projected that the annual financing needs of poorer nations will be $340 billion.
Already, more than 2 billion people depend on smallholder farms for food and income, yet less than 2% of global climate finance is devoted to helping these farms adapt to climate change, the foundation said.
It said that food and economic crises will last longer and become more severe as climate threats escalate and further threaten food security by limiting smallholder farmers’ yields and resilience.
“The effects of climate change have already been devastating, and every moment the world delays action, more people suffer, and the solutions become more complex and costly,” Suzman was quoted as saying.
He said he hoped that the pledge will help smallholder farmers adapt today and build resilience for the future.
He added that leaders must listen to the voices of African farmers and governments to understand their priorities and respond with urgency.
The foundation emphasised that its commitment will fund immediate action and long-term initiatives over the next four years to help smallholder farmers in the aforementioned regions build resilience and food security.
It will focus on spurring African-led innovation to build a pipeline of climate-smart agriculture projects and support women smallholder farmers to capitalise on their untapped potential.
Image source: @CNBC
