Responding to spiking food prices, the World Bank said on Monday that it will nearly double the amount in loans made to help boost agricultural production in Africa.
The loans are raised to $700 million (3,4 mia. d. kr.) from $420 million (2,03 mia d. kr) according to The World Bank Press Review.
– We are really trying to upgrade our efforts in terms of increasing agricultural production, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said.
World Bank lending for agriculture has averaged some $500 million a year, (2,4 mia. d. kr.) but there are plans to push it up to as much as $850 million (4,1 mia. d. kr) in coming years.
MAD- OG OLIEPRISER TRUER MÅLSÆTNING
Expensive food, high oil costs and grim projections of damage from global warming are the biggest challenges to meeting the UN’s 2015 deadline for reducing poverty around the globe, officials said Monday.
After a meeting on the world body’s eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, world financial officials and African and European leaders told reporters that sub-Saharan Africa is the region most off-track from achieving the poverty goals.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
