This announcement was made public on the occasion of the UN Climate Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia will benefit from a $1.4 billion grant by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help them adapt to climate change, the charity announced today.
This amount will be spread over a four-year period to favor innovations that will enable farmers to better withstand droughts, heatwaves and extreme floods exacerbated by climate change.
“Additional funding is needed to ensure that agricultural and technological innovations are widely available to vulnerable communities,” Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of IT giant Microsoft, said in a statement.
The announcement was made on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, where political leaders from around the world are gathering from today, under pressure to strengthen their climate commitments in the face of worsening warming and to offer financial support to poor countries, which suffer the most from its consequences.
Organizations representing 350 million smallholder farmers today called for a COP27 “priority” to build a “food system that can feed the world on an overheated planet”.
“The effects of climate change are already devastating, and every time the world delays taking action, more people suffer and the solutions become more complex and more expensive,” insisted Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman.
“Leaders must listen to the voice of African farmers. Governments must understand their priorities and respond urgently,” he stressed.
The funds released by the charity are mainly expected to encourage new technologies, help women and encourage innovations in livestock management.
A platform being developed with Kenya will therefore help farmers better prepare for the threats of climate change, with messages sent to their mobile phones that can help them save their crops.
Experts welcomed these announcements while insisting that more support is needed.
Elizabeth Robinson, director of the Center for Climate Change Economics and Policy, also welcomed the “significant” announcement, noting that “the scale of the problem is such that governments, the private sector and international organizations must all step up their commitments in favor of food security”.
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