The World Bank will double its commitments to the agribusiness sector to $9 billion each year by 2030 as part of a “strategic pivot” that also aims to create jobs in lower-income countries, the bank’s President Ajay Banga said Wednesday.
The announcement during the bank’s annual meetings in Washington, D.C., comes as the institution navigates growing pressure to invest in reducing emissions from agrifood systems, which account for a third of all human-made global greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, Banga said, the agriculture sector itself faces threats due to climate change.
Major shifts underway in agribusiness “arrive at a time of extraordinary opportunity as global food demand is set to increase by 50 to 60 percent in the coming decades,” Banga said in a speech in the sunny atrium of the bank’s main building.