The Africa Solidarity Trust Fund (ASTF) has donated $1 million to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations to combat the worsening Desert Locust upsurge in the Horn of Africa.
The ASTF Steering Committee Chairperson, Maria De Fatima Jardim, who is also the Permanent Representative of Angola to FAO said:
The contribution from the Africa Solidarity Trust Fund presents a timely opportunity calling upon all African countries and resource partners to support the outbreak through the ASTF platform.
Maria Helena Semedo, FAO’s Deputy Director-General for Climate and Natural Resources, who is currently attending a ministerial briefing on Desert Locusts on the margins of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa called for immediate action to deal with the nomadic pests “before the next planting season.”
According to FAO’s latest update, the recent upsurge presents an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
The Africa Solidarity Trust Fund (ASTF) is an innovative Africa-led fund that was launched in 2013 to support African development initiative.
