
AfDB offers Morocco $116 million loan to support sustainable agriculture
The financing is intended to boost food security, and strengthen the resilience of small-scale farming against climate change, the AFDB said in a statement.
"Women who have the ambition to undertake and succeed in agriculture are our priority," said Achraf Tarsim, the head of the AfDB office in Morocco.
Over five decades, the AfDB has invested 15 billion euros ($17.46 billion) in projects, including transport, water, energy, farming, social protection, governance and finance.
($1 = 0.8590 euros)
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Platinum price rally pulls producers from the brink, Valterra CEO says
JOHANNESBURG, July 28 (Reuters) - The platinum price rally during the first half of 2025 has helped most mines recover from loss-making positions but the industry is still far from adding new production, Valterra Platinum (VALJ.J), opens new tab CEO Craig Miller said on Monday. South African miners, which account for over 70% of the world's platinum supply, cut out unprofitable production over the past two years after metal prices collapsed, amid warnings that the industry was in terminal decline. Prices of the metal, used to make catalytic converters that curb vehicle emissions, surged 36% in the second quarter, lifted by rising Chinese imports and heavy flows into NYMEX exchange stocks under the threat of U.S. import tariffs, at a time when South African output has dropped. "About 90% of the industry is now making money or just breaking even, versus 40% at the end of last year," Miller told Reuters in an interview. However, prices are still not high enough for the industry to consider adding new production, he added. "You need to see another 50% increase in prices in order to incentivise that new production to come to market. So we still think there's some way to go," Miller said. Valterra, formerly Anglo American Platinum, reported an 81% slump in half-year profit, hit by lower output and costs associated with its demerger from the Anglo American group. Headline earnings were 1.2 billion rand ($67.62 million) in the six months to June 30, down from 6.5 billion rand a year earlier. Valterra declared an interim dividend of 2 rand per share, down 79% from the payout a year earlier. The world's biggest PGM producer by value demerged in June and is now listed separately in Johannesburg and London while global mining giant Anglo restructures its business to focus on copper. ($1 = 17.7452 rand)


Times
4 hours ago
- Times
Tech titans Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates team up in race for minerals
A company backed by the billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos is to challenge China in the global race for the minerals that power modern technology. KoBold Metals is to begin mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is estimated by the US to have up to $24 trillion of largely untapped resources. The firm has secured rights to mine one of the world's largest hard-rock lithium deposits, in a region that has been fought over for decades. The venture will be a test of President Trump's pro-business foreign policy and his pledge to restore peace to an area overrun with militia and troops from Congo's neighbours. A Rwanda-backed rebel group has seized a swathe of land there, including its biggest cities, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. A peace deal signed in Washington last month between the DRC and Rwanda to end the fighting was hailed as historic by Trump. Questions remain about its details, however, including the nature of any US security guarantees and which side will benefit most from US business investment. Despite its immense supplies of copper, cobalt, coltan, tin and uranium, the DRC is among the five poorest countries in the world. For years, US firms considered the challenges of operating in such an unstable and corrupt country too great, which has enabled Chinese firms to get ahead. However, Trump's new focus appears to have provided enough confidence for KoBold Metals to agree a 'large-scale minerals exploration programme' over 1,600 sq km in the DRC's most volatile region. Benjamin Katabuka, its director-general in the country, told the Financial Times that the firm was 'looking to go big in this country … investments could be in the billions'. KoBold Metals pledged to develop local talent and to 'create thousands of high-paying Congolese jobs for decades'. Another US consortium, including a company led by former US special forces staff, has emerged as the leading bidder for Chemaf Resources Ltd, a Congolese copper and cobalt producer, after Kinshasa blocked its sale to a Chinese state-owned firm. President Tshisekedi of the DRC has long sought to attract more western investment to counterbalance China's dominance. He approached the US in February with an offer of mining rights in exchange for security support and has since backed calls for Trump to win the Nobel peace prize. KoBold Metals' agreement to develop the Roche Dure lithium deposit at Manono is contingent on resolving a long-running dispute over rights to the site between the Congolese government, Australia-based AVZ Minerals and China's state-backed Zijin Mining. The US start-up will also face the challenge of operating in a sector fraught with reports of labour abuses and environmental harm, and being judged against its billionaire backers' humanitarian and green commitments. The Bezos Earth Fund has pledged $110 million in grants to protect the Congo basin and the Gates Foundation helps fund agricultural development in the region. Founded in 2018, KoBold Metals distinguishes itself from traditional mining companies by using artificial intelligence to 'scrape' geological archives and algorithms to identify potential mineral deposits. In 2024, it found Zambia's largest copper deposit in a century. The conflict in the eastern DRC stems from the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda when nearly two million Hutus, including those accused of the slaughter, fled into Congo fearing reprisals. Rwanda has repeatedly intervened, citing threats from Hutu militias, and an estimated six million people have died in fighting, famine and disease. Analysts say much of the violence is driven by competition over natural resources. Reports by the UN and a number of western governments, including the US and EU, have presented evidence that Rwanda is backing and arming the M23 rebel movement in part to loot minerals from the DRC and export them as their own. Rwanda denies the allegation.


Reuters
4 hours ago
- Reuters
Climate, gender in focus for World Bank in aid-reliant Pacific Islands
SYDNEY, July 28 (Reuters) - The World Bank has maintained its focus on climate change and gender in the Pacific, managing director of operations Anna Bjerde said on a visit to Australia, even as its largest shareholder the United States reduces aid in those areas. After meeting Pacific Islands economic ministers in Fiji, Bjerde said countries in the region continued to worry about being exposed to the accelerating effects of climate change, and had grave concerns about food security and rising debt levels. Six Pacific Island countries are at high risk of debt distress, the bank says. The World Bank is moving a regional vice president from Washington to Singapore, and will move directors from Australia to Fiji and Papua New Guinea to be closer to a $3.4 billion Pacific aid programme that has grown seven-fold in 10 years, she said in an interview on Monday. "We are committed to designing projects that really take into account the vulnerabilities of countries we work in. In this part of the world, countries are vulnerable to the impact of climate change," she said. "We haven't really changed our language around that," she added. Pacific road projects designed to be flood resilient provide better infrastructure that can withstand the changing climate and also be counted in climate finance programmes, Bjerde said. The World Bank was focussed on boosting women's workforce participation to help lift the region's economic growth, she said, after meeting women leaders in Fiji who highlighted the need for childcare so women can work. On Monday, Bjerde also met officials from the Australian government, the largest bilateral donor to the region. Under reforms introduced last year by its president Ajay Banga, the World Bank has started to roll out region-wide programmes to have a bigger impact among Pacific countries with small populations. Eight countries have joined an arrangement that stops small island states being cut off from the international financial system, while a health programme targeting non-communicable disease will potentially reach 2 million people across the Pacific Ocean and train 16,000 health workers. A trade programme is also being designed to give access to goods faster and more cheaply, she said.