Devex Newswire: Inside the UN’s murky fertilizer deal with Russia

Today, we bring you inside the United Nations deal to pipe large amounts of ammonia gas, a key ingredient in nitrate fertilizer, out of Russia, through a battlefield, and to food producers around the world.

Also in today's edition: The latest from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings and news of an impact investment milestone.

Fertilizer wars

The hard-won United Nations deal to export Ukrainian grain is at risk, amid Russian complaints of not being able to ship a key fertilizer export, in line with the agreement. My colleagues Colum Lynch and Shabtai Gold bring you inside the secretive and ambitious United Nations plan to move ammonia out of Russia, across a Ukrainian battlefield, and into the Black Sea to be shipped to ports across the world.

The complex deal has encountered myriad obstacles amid the grinding war. While the world needs Russia’s fertilizer — the country is the world’s largest exporter of the stuff — its recent referendum on the annexation of eastern Ukraine and missile bombardments hitting civilian targets in Ukraine have prompted fresh outrage.

So can the deal be pulled off? The food security of millions depends on it. At a time of gathering global economic storms, the price of fertilizer — critical for growing crops at the quantities needed — have remained at historic highs even while crop prices have fallen.

Fertilizer diplomacy: How ammonia could hobble Black Sea grain deal

Background: Inside the UN's high-stakes deal to open Ukraine's grain corridor

+ Next week, my colleague Teresa Welsh will bring you another report on the fertilizer crisis. Sign up to our free, weekly newsletter on global food systems, Devex Dish, to get it first. 

Top soil

While we have your attention on fertilizer, the substance is useless without soil to put it in. Teresa spoke with Ronald Vargas, head of the Global Soil Partnership, about why mere dirt is the fundamental building block of the entire food system and key to global food security. But there’s a lack of awareness of soil’s importance among policymakers.

“Soils are very clear for a number of ecosystem services they provide. One of them, of course, is food security and nutrition, but also food safety because if we want to ensure you have healthy crops free of pathogens, full of nutrients, and free of contaminants, then the place to work is on soils,” Vargas says.

Read more: Why soil is the fundamental building block of food security (Pro)

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Heated debate

As you are well aware, the World Bank and IMF annual meetings are well underway. This year Devex is an official media partner of IMF and my colleague Shabtai is on the ground capturing the latest developments. Yesterday that included a pretty heated debate on gas at the Center for Global Development.

After the event and taking a couple of selfies, Senegalese economy minister, Oulimata Sarr, told Shabtai about why Africa needs to continue developing its gas resources.

She noted that Africa contributes a miniscule portion of global carbon emissions, while many people on the continent still lack electricity. “In order to end poverty in our lifetime, we will need to use our resources,” she said, but added the question is: Where will the financing come from? 

The topic is part of a huge debate between environmentalists, shareholders of the World Bank, and borrowing countries. Germany has joined the United States in pushing for reform of the bank, as part of a design to get the institution to focus more on climate finance and other so-called global public goods.

“Its current model, which is mainly based on demand from borrowing countries, is no longer appropriate in this time of global crises,” German Development Minister Svenja Schulze said.

ICYMI: What we are watching at the World Bank-IMF meetings amid 'acute' crises

Also read: These op-eds on why the World Bank should become the “IMF of climate,” and why the World Bank and multilateral development banks must show proactive climate leadership.

Total disconnect

Also speaking at the CGD event was Annalisa Prizzon, a researcher at the ODI think tank, who presented a fascinating survey showing the disconnect between MDB staff and borrowing countries, which are often the world’s lowest-income nations.

While 95% of World Bank staff respondents prioritized climate change, borrowing countries said health, water and sanitation, and education were their main concerns, Prizzon’s data showed. Similar data appears across the MDBs.

Related: G-20 report says MDBs are holding back hundreds of billions

Trillion-dollar milestone

Speaking of financing, the impact investing industry has exceeded the $1 trillion milestone, according to the Global Impact Investing Network, an industry body, my colleague Adva Saldinger reports from The Hague. The new GIIN analysis backs up what has been clear anecdotally in recent years — that demand for impact investments is growing and more groups are getting involved, what GIIN CEO Amit Bouri called “undeniable momentum” on Wednesday.

“It’s not nearly as big as it should be, but it’s big enough to pay attention to,” Bouri said.

Despite the growth, the industry faces several headwinds including controversies around investments labeled sustainable or environmental, social and governance — or ESG — investments that don’t deliver and a lack of clarity.

+ Sign up to Devex Invested to closely follow Adva’s reporting on impact investing and other development finance insights.

U-turn

In a bid to address runaway food shortages, Kenya’s newly elected government has overturned a 10-year ban on the cultivation and importation of genetically modified crops.  

Over 4 million people in the country are currently facing high levels of acute food insecurity — the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s Phase 3 or above — due to a prolonged drought following the failure of rains. Though the government believes GMOs may be the solution, activists are not so convinced.

The Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya, or BIBA Kenya, has set up a petition to force the government to undo their u-turn. The petition states that the “use of the current hunger situation to justify the decision to allow GMOs into the country is also quite unsettling and a clear violation of the principles of the Human Right to Adequate Food.”

Read: Kenya lifts ban on genetically modified foods despite strong opposition

In other news

The U.S. will accelerate additional humanitarian aid to the people of Haiti, which is suffering from debilitating food and fuel shortages as a result of a monthlong gang siege of the country's main fuel terminal. [Reuters]

Following a deadly outbreak of a rare strain of the Ebola virus in Uganda, two of several vaccines in various development stages could begin clinical trials within weeks, says the World Health Organization. [France 24]

Nigeria’s finance minister says the country is exploring debt restructuring, and extending the repayment period of its credit obligations. [Bloomberg]

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