World Bank promises to invest over $5 billion to restore landscapes, improve agriculture in Africa

The World Bank has revealed plans to invest over $5 billion in the next five years to help restore degraded landscapes, improve agriculture productivity, and promote livelihoods.

This was revealed by the President of the World Bank Group, David Malpass, today, at the One Planet Summit, a high-level meeting co-hosted with France and the United Nations.

During the Summit which focused on addressing climate change and biodiversity loss in the continent of Africa, the President of World Bank said the Group is set to invest over $5 billion over the next five years.

He explained that the investment which comes at a very crucial time will help to restore degraded landscapes, improve agriculture productivity, and promote livelihoods as countries recover from COVID-19.

In his words, he said:

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  “This investment, which comes at a crucial time, will help improve livelihoods as countries recover from COVID-19 while also dealing with the impact of both biodiversity loss and climate change on their people and economies.”

Commenting on this development was Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission. She said:

• “Restoring natural ecosystems in the drylands of Africa benefits both people and the planet.”

About the investment

• The $5 billion financing will be targeted towards supporting agriculture, restoring biodiversity, and enhancing community development, food security, landscape restoration, job creation, resilient infrastructure, rural mobility, and access to renewable energy across 11 countries of the Sahel, Lake Chad and Horn of Africa.
• Many of these efforts are in line with the Great Green Wall initiative. This move will build on World Bank’s landscape investments in Africa over the past eight years, that reached more than 19 million people and placed 1.6 million hectares under sustainable land management.
• However, a World Bank global fund, PROGREEN, dedicated to boosting countries’ efforts to address landscape degradation, will also invest $14.5 million in five Sahelian countries – Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania.

What you should know

• The World Bank Group is the biggest multilateral funder of climate investments in developing countries. In December 2020, the World Bank Group announced an ambitious new target for 35% of its financing to have climate co-benefits, on average, over the next five years.