• EDITORIAL POLICY
  • ABOUT US
PML Daily
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • NEWS
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Regional
    • Africa
    • World
  • INVESTIGATIONS
    • National Archives
    • Special Reports
  • OpEd
  • BUSINESS
    • Agriculture
    • Tech
    • Finance
  • FEATURES
    • Health
    • Tours & Travel
    • Entertainment
    • Society
  • COLUMNISTS
    • The Suited Penguin
  • SPORT
  • Jobs
  • Magazines
  • Home
  • NEWS
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Regional
    • Africa
    • World
  • INVESTIGATIONS
    • National Archives
    • Special Reports
  • OpEd
  • BUSINESS
    • Agriculture
    • Tech
    • Finance
  • FEATURES
    • Health
    • Tours & Travel
    • Entertainment
    • Society
  • COLUMNISTS
    • The Suited Penguin
  • SPORT
  • Jobs
  • Magazines
No Result
View All Result
PML Daily
No Result
View All Result
Home BUSINESS Agriculture

Africa Solidarity Trust Fund donates UGX.4 billion to combat Desert Locust in Uganda

JAVIRA SSEBWAMI | PML Daily Staff WriterbyJAVIRA SSEBWAMI | PML Daily Staff Writer
February 11, 2020
18 1
14
SHARES
271
VIEWS
FacebookWhatsAppTwitter
Government delivered to Karamoja 18,000 litres of cypermethrin and another 18,000 litres of Chlorpyrifos to spray the locusts (PHOTO/File)

KAMPALA – The Africa Solidarity Trust Fund (ASTF) has donated $1 million (UGX. three billion to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to combat the worsening Desert Locust upsurge in Uganda and other East African countries where the deadly insects have wreaked havoc.

The decision came at a meeting of the ASTF Steering Committee at FAO headquarters in Rome

“We have a window of opportunity before the next planting season. We must act now. Flexible funding, like that of the ASTF, helps us move fast,” said Maria Helena Semedo, FAO’s Deputy Director-General for Climate and Natural Resources, who also attended a ministerial briefing on Desert Locusts on the margins of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa last week.

“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,” said the ASTF Steering Committee Chairperson, Maria De Fatima Jardim, who is also the Permanent Representative of Angola to FAO.

The Desert Locust is the most dangerous migratory pest in the world and according to FAO’s latest update, the recent upsurge presents an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.

Swarms of desert locusts entered Uganda on Sunday having wreaked havoc in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya – causing massive food shortages.

FAO has estimated that $76 million is needed to scale up efforts to control the rapid spread of this pest and FAO Director-General QU Dongyu has called for urgent action to combat the upsurge. So far, more than $18 million has been donated to the efforts to fight the upsurge.

The potential for destruction is enormous.  A locust swarm of one square kilometre can eat the same amount of food in one day as 35,000 people.

FAO is already working closely with local and national governments and partners, supporting surveillance and control operations and initiating efforts to safeguard livelihoods and assist in the longer-term recovery and resilience of those affected.

However, intensive ground and aerial control operations need to be urgently scaled up to detect and reduce the locust numbers before they spread any further.

The Africa Solidarity Trust Fund (ASTF) is an innovative Africa-led fund that supports African development initiatives and is uniquely positioned to reinforce the capacities of affected African countries to combat the locust.

Launched in 2013, the ASTF provides catalytic and ?exible funding to support Africa-to-Africa initiatives on food and agriculture systems, at the regional and country level.

The ASTF’s latest donation follows similar action by the Steering Committee in the wake of the outbreak of the Ebola disease in West Africa several years ago.

The Fund then allocated $1.5 million to support rapid-intervention projects in three countries affected by Ebola (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone). ASTF has also contributed to support projects that control the tomato leaf miner and Fall Armyworm in southern Africa.

ASTF has benefited hundreds of thousands of family farmers, women and youth in 41 African countries by supporting a wide variety of projects that help boost rural employment opportunities, increase agricultural production, generate new income streams and build resilience.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Related

Leave a comment

Tags: Desert locustsFAOtopUgandaUN

Get real time update about this post categories directly on your device, subscribe now.

Unsubscribe


About

The PML Daily, published via www.pmldaily.com is a publication of Post Media Ltd, a professional Digital/New Media company in Uganda.

Follow us



  • EDITORIAL POLICY
  • ABOUT US

© 2023

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • NEWS
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Regional
    • Africa
    • World
  • INVESTIGATIONS
    • National Archives
    • Special Reports
  • OpEd
  • BUSINESS
    • Agriculture
    • Tech
    • Finance
  • FEATURES
    • Health
    • Tours & Travel
    • Entertainment
    • Society
  • COLUMNISTS
    • The Suited Penguin
  • SPORT
  • Jobs
  • Magazines

© 2023

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist