The grant will finance Burundi’s National Agricultural Investment Plan, known by the French acronym PNIA.
Seven donors have pledged $1.1 billion to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP). Countries are the United States, Canada, Spain, South Korea, Australia, the Gates Foundation and the Netherlands. Approximately $700 million has been paid to this date. Grants have been awarded to eleven African countries including Burundi, Ethiopia, Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Togo.
According to the US Department of the Treasury, the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) is an initiative aimed at boosting agriculture in 11 African nations. US participation is also a component of President Barack Obama’s Feed the Future initiative and represents a unique partnership between donors, partner countries, civil society and multilateral development institutions to scale up financing for agriculture in the poorest countries. USAID contributed $12.9 million to the program.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Burundi has identified a series of major problems in the country’s agriculture, such as lack of basic ingredients for good farming, small plots, low soil fertility, poor seed quality, and an upsurge in diseases and pests that are destroying key crops such as cassava and bananas, and diseases in livestock.
Answers to questions from Burundi will be provided soon, representatives of the US Embassy in Bujumbura said Tuesday.
