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G8 pledges $20B in farm aid to poor nations
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-10 21:03

Life And Death Decisions

Besides Meles, the leaders of Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa joined their G8 counterparts to discuss food security and farming, and to push their demand for compensation for the ravages of climate change.

It was not clear how much of the $20 billion was new funding and how much each country would give.

G8 pledges $20B in farm aid to poor nations
A girl carrying baked goods on her head walks past Cape Coast Castle, a former slave holding facility, in the Ghanaian town of Cape Coast July 9, 2009. [Agencies]

The focus on agricultural investments reflects a US-led shift away from emergency aid assistance towards longer-term strategies to try to make communities more self-sufficient.

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Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade told Reuters that Barack Obama, who will make his first visit to Africa as US president after the G8, brought a welcome new focus on African farming.

Wade, who has championed efforts to increase agriculture in his West African country, which relies heavily on food imports, said Obama "really has the will to focus on food in Africa".

"The United States produces maize and some crops and sends it to people in famine, but the new conception is to produce these crops in Africa and not in the United States," Wade said.

But the $20 billion compares unfavourably with $13.4 billion which the G8 says it disbursed between January 2008 and July 2009 for global food security.

British charity ActionAid has warned that, with one billion hungry, decisions at the G8 could "literally make the difference between life and death for millions in the developing world".

Japan and the European Union were championing a code of conduct for responsible investment in the face of growing farmland acquisition or "land grabs" in emerging nations.