The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has committed to date more than half of the $14 billion it programmed from 2022 to 2025 intended to ease the worsening food crisis in the Asia Pacific region and improve long-term food security.
“We have already committed $7.6 billion of this $14 billion and are on (track) to deliver the rest by the end of 2025,” ADB president Masatsugu Asakawa said in his opening remarks at the Asia and the Pacific Food Security Forum 2024 held at the ADB office in Manila yesterday.
The assistance expands ADB’s support for food security in the region. The funding is channeled through existing and new projects in sectors including farm inputs, food production and distribution, social protection, irrigation and water resources management, as well as projects leveraging nature-based solutions.
ADB also continues to invest in other activities which contribute to food security, such as energy transition, transport, access to rural finance, environmental management, health and education.
“Behind these financial resources is a plan not only to address the symptoms of food insecurity, like malnutrition, but also to transform the entire (agricultural) food system,” Asakawa said.
“ADB is strongly committed to these transformative efforts. We must create a food system that is healthy, prosperous and sustainable for the planet and for generations to come. Let me end by emphasizing that this transformation requires strong collaboration. We must forge partnerships that achieve food security while protecting the planet,” he added.
In 2022, ADB said its food security assistance will 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.
A key focus will be to protect the region’s natural environment from climate change impacts and biodiversity loss, which have degraded soils, freshwater and marine ecosystems.
