Bill Gates donates £20m to kickstart fund for farmers
Posted on April 23, 2010
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Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, donated $30m (£19.5m) to a new fund to help poor farmers today in an effort to push wealthy countries into fulfilling promises to stump up billions in aid.
The Gates Foundation has focused primarily on health issues but sees aid for farmers as the key to helping people out of poverty. Gates, in Washington for the fund’s launch, expressed disappointment that more money from the world’s wealthiest nations has not been forthcoming.
About $22bn to help farmers in the developing world was promised last year by the G8 at a summit in L’Aquila, Italy. They were acting in response to a proposal put forward by the Obama administration.
Gates made the announcement about his contribution at a joint press conference at the Treasury with Tim Geithner, the US treasury secretary, James Flaherty, the Canadian finance minister, Elena Salgado, the Spanish finance minister, Yoon Jeung-Hyun, the South Korean finance minister, and Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president.
Gates’s $30m contribution goes into a $875m pot put together with the US, Canada, South Korea and Spain, but far short of the $22bn agreed by the international community.
More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/22/bill-gates-farmers-aid
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