Reuters has scooped a U.S. plan to seek a new pledge from the G-8. The U.S. gov­ern­ment has drafted a pro­posal that would have the G-8 pledge $15 bil­lion dol­lars to be given to food secu­rity needs in the under-developed world. How­ever, the money would go to a new fund to be oper­ated by the World Bank.

From Reuters, writ­ers Sil­via Aloisi and Dar­ren Ennis explain the proposal.

The dec­la­ra­tion said Wash­ing­ton was ready to mobilise $3–4 bil­lion and wanted other part­ners to match that com­mit­ment to reach the $15 bil­lion tar­get.

“The funds…would be ear­marked for invest­ment in low income coun­tries to imple­ment agri­cul­ture devel­op­ment strate­gies, to finance agri­cul­tural infra­struc­ture, land and water man­age­ment, risk mit­i­ga­tion actions,” the dec­la­ra­tion said.

It said they would be pooled in a global agri­cul­ture and food secu­rity trust fund man­aged by the World Bank. It voiced con­cern for the impact of the eco­nomic cri­sis, food price volatil­ity and under-investment in agri­cul­ture on poverty.

The United States is the world’s largest food aid donor, mostly of domes­ti­cally grown food bought from U.S. farmers.

The Euro­pean Union has wel­comed U.S. Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s pledge for new funds, and EU Com­mis­sion Pres­i­dent Jose Manuel Bar­roso said on Mon­day the bloc would com­mit another $1 bil­lion per year on top of the money it has already promised — esti­mated at around $7 bil­lion to date.

Ital­ian Prime Min­is­ter Sil­vio Berlus­coni, who will host the G8, said he expected the meet­ing to slate between 10 and 15 bil­lion dol­lars for world food secu­rity. But the EU is scep­ti­cal about the need for a new mech­a­nism, such as the pro­posed trust fund.
…

Aid cam­paign­ers are also wor­ried about the lack of details about the funds to be pledged by the G8 summit.

“The devil is always in the detail. Is this new money? Are they includ­ing loans as well as grants, bilat­eral as well as mul­ti­lat­eral com­mit­ments? The G8 needs to be absolutely trans­par­ent about what it is doing,” said Oliver Bus­ton of anti-poverty cam­paign ONE.

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