Brussels, 15/06/2010 (Agence Europe) - Set in place just one year ago to tackle the food crisis affecting developing countries, the EU Food Facility, which started with a budget of €1 billion, has now already disbursed €500 million and has committed 97% of its funds to help 50 million people throughout the world in a large number of target countries. By way of example, in Pakistan, where harvests have fallen over the past two years due to the surge in seed prices and fertiliser and the rising price of foodstuffs due to the drought, farmers have managed to put a halt to this downward spiral thanks to a joint EU, WFP and FAO project implemented under the Food Facility. Instead of being indebted, 23,000 Pakistani farmers have received 400 kg of wheat from the WFP to last them through the lean season before harvest. In Niger, the EU and UNICEF joined forces in 2009 within the Food Facility in order to treat 65,000 children under the age of five suffering from serous malnutrition. In Guatemala, the Food Facility has allowed 14 families of small farmers to receive fertiliser. Faced with an impressive number of high-quality proposals but a limited budget, the European Commission is calling on other donors to help funding projects under the newly launched “Food Facility Auction Floor”. It is in this context that the Commission published, on Tuesday 15 June, a brochure setting out the 84 best projects ready for implementation in order to facilitate a match between investors and project developers. With this auction floor, the European Commission aims to increase cost effectiveness, coherence and coordination in line with the Accra Agenda on aid effectiveness, by giving access to ready-to-fund projects. (O.L./transl.jl)
European Parliament plenary session