A group of African and U.S. firms on Tuesday will announce an additional $7 billion in spending to promote agricultural development in Africa, nearly doubling an Obama administration initiative aimed at mobilizing private money to ease hunger and poverty on the continent.
The commitments — which are being made as part of this week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit and include a $5 billion pledge by Coca-Cola to source more of its products from Africa by the end of the decade — highlight how U.S. food aid policy has shifted under President Obama. Rather than relying primarily on federal funds to support small farmers overseas, the administration has enlisted African companies and major multinationals to help address some of the development challenges Africans still face.
In an interview, U.S Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah said the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition — the private-sector-oriented program Obama launched at Camp David in 2012 — was attracting new investment “because this way is working.”
“We have been able to do some extraordinary things to dramatically reduce hunger through the commercialization of the agriculture sector,” Shah added.
The initiative attracted $3.5 billion when it launched, with the majority of the money coming from large international companies. The new commitments bring it close to $15 billion. Two-thirds of the firms participating are African, and these companies account for roughly half of the program’s pledges.
