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A worthy G-8 proposal aims to lift millions out of poverty

Written by Rural Finance Network
Friday, 18 May 2012 12:19
OVER THE PAST decade, the world has made great strides in helping people lift themselves out of extreme poverty. But more than half of sub-Saharan Africa’s 740 million people still subsist on less than $1.25 a day. More than one-fourth suffer from chronic hunger. By 2050, the region’s total population will double. Without increased agricultural productivity, the region’s poverty and malnutrition will not only persist but worsen. On Friday, in advance of the 2012 Group of Eight summit of industrialized nations at Camp David, President Obama is to announce a joint effort to lift 50 million people in the region out of extreme poverty within 10 years. The innovative strategy behind the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition is to foster political reform as a means of encouraging increased private investment in agriculture. The investment is not targeted at large-scale corporate production but aims to enable smaller-scale farmers to increase output, primarily for their own consumption but also for sale.
Last Updated on Friday, 18 May 2012 12:33
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Youths hold key to food security, UN report tells Kenya

Written by Rural Finance Network
Thursday, 17 May 2012 13:10
Kenya needs to provide “strategic subsidies” to farmers as well as woo young people to take up agribusiness for it to attain food security, a United Nations study has said. The Africa Human Development Report, 2012 calls on governments to invest in programmes that help farmers to access quality seeds, fertiliser, artificial insemination and farm machinery to boost agricultural output through subsidies. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report on food security says that a study of the government fertiliser subsidy scheme shows that farmers in western Kenya were willing to buy and use more fertiliser when it was discounted, resulting in a 50 per cent increase in output.
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Warehouse Receipt Systems for Inclusive Agricultural Finance

Written by Rural Finance Network
Thursday, 10 May 2012 05:31
IFC and the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) are pleased to invite you to the inaugural symposium on Warehouse Receipt Systems for Inclusive Agricultural Finance, an informative and unique forum that draws practitioners from around the world. The Forum will be held at the Sheraton Addis Hotel, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on June 4-5, 2012.
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Vast scope for India-Africa SME cooperation

Written by Rural Finance Network
Wednesday, 16 May 2012 14:06
India and Africa have immense scope for cooperation in sectors such as the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), agriculture, finance, and tourism, said the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia in New Delhi on Tuesday. “As Africa moves towards more rapid industrialization, there is a growing recognition that small, medium and micro enterprises offer significant avenues for supporting industrialization, generating employment and enhancing local capacities,” he said during a CII event in New Delhi on “New Focus Markets: LAC and Africa.”
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MasterCard Foundation, IFC To Target Africa Financial Services

Written by Rural Finance Network
Wednesday, 09 May 2012 05:11
The World Bank partner devoted to developing the private sector and The MasterCard Foundation will spend millions of dollars so more impoverished Africans can get loans and other financial services, officials said Monday. At a Johannesburg news conference Monday, officials from the International Finance Corporation, which is part of the World Bank group, and The MasterCard Foundation said they would spend $37.4 million over five years to support banks and other institutions across Africa that provide small loans, a strategy known as microfinancing. People around the world have used such loans to lift themselves out of poverty by starting or expanding small businesses, sending children to school or buying fertilizer for subsistence farms.
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