Country Report Burundi February 2011

Foreign trade and payments: Belgium and the FAO pledge large grants for agriculture

The Belgian government and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) are making a concerted bid to extract maximum value from the government's stated commitment to agriculture (see Economic policy), with the two announcing a joint aid package for the sector worth US$129m in late October. The FAO has pledged US$61m and the Belgian government US$69m. The assistance should help build capacity at the Ministry of Agriculture, and begin to address some of the urgent problems troubling rural areas, including the impact of climate change, the accommodation of returning refugees and falling land yields.

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