US, Norway Launch $70M Fund To Help African Agricultural Businesses

News in brief: The United States and Norway are launching a $70 million fund to aid African farmers and agricultural businesses in addressing the region's growing hunger crisis, exacerbated by supply disruptions from the Ukraine-Russia conflict and climate-related challenges.

The United States and Norway will launch a $70 million fund to help farmers and agricultural businesses in Africa. It is expected to address the worsening hunger crisis in the region.

Africa faces a food crisis due to supply disruption caused by Ukraine and Russia's conflict. Also, local production is facing challenges like extreme weather linked to climate change and poor financing.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Samantha Power and Norwegian Minister of International Development Beathe Tvinnereim made the announcement together.

The fund aims to reach a total of $200 million through additional contributions from donors. It will focus on supporting small- and medium-sized agricultural businesses, smallholder farmers, and private sector jobs.

The announcement of the fund comes as Russia and China are vying with the United States and Europe to win over developing countries. Russia has been making inroads recently with various agreements from different meetings.

While eastern African countries have managed to avoid famine this year, Reuters says that aid officials claim about 60 million people are still food insecure in seven of these nations.

Norway's agriculture sector’s performance has been improving steadily in recent years due to aid. The country keeps its first rank in the world in terms of farming output and produces large quantities of rice, wheat, cotton, meat, poultry, eggs and fishery products.