Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 27) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is planning to allocate at least $14 billion from 2022 to 2025 to address the food crisis in Asia and the Pacific region.
ADB made the announcement on Tuesday, noting this will fund “a comprehensive program of support to ease a worsening food crisis in Asia and the Pacific, and improve long-term food security by strengthening food systems against the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.”
This will be channeled through existing and new projects in sectors like farm inputs, food production and distribution, social protection, irrigation, and water resources management, as well as projects leveraging nature-based solutions, it said.
The assistance will also expand the ADB’s support for food security in the region, where nearly 1.1 billion individuals don’t get access to a healthy diet due to poverty and rising food prices.
“This is timely and urgently needed response to a crisis that is leaving too many poor families in Asia hungry and in deeper poverty,” ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa said.
“Our support will be targeted, integrated, and impactful to help vulnerable people, particularly vulnerable women, in the near-term, while bolstering food systems to reduce the impact of emerging and future food security risks” he added.
In the long term, Asakawa said they aim to safeguard natural resources and help farmers and agribusinesses, which produce and distribute food in the region.
Through the assistance, ADB plans to promote open trade, improve smallholder farm production and livelihoods, ease shortages of fertilizer and promote its efficient use or organic alternatives, support investments in food production and distribution, enhance nutrition, and boost climate resilience through integrated and nature-based solutions.
ADB said the funding will be drawn from its sovereign and private sector operations. It will also seek an additional $5 billion in private sector co-financing for food security.
