A new fund designed to reduce global poverty by focusing on food security and agriculture has been created: The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP). The United States, Canada, Spain, the Republic of Korea and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will together provide about USD 900 million in support to the GAFSP.

The World Bank will serve as trustee and host of a coordination unit for the fund, and if requested, as a supervising entity, the World Bank reported in April 2010. The origins of the new fund stem from the G8-plus meeting in L’Aquila, Italy, in July 2009, where leaders pledged more than USD 20 billion to boost food security and agriculture. Leaders at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh in September 2009 then called on the World Bank to “work with interested donors and organisations to develop a multilateral trust fund to scale up agricultural assistance to low income countries.” The GAFSP will handle some of the funds originally pledged in L’Aquila.

(The World Bank/ib)