THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) plans to provide at least US$14 billion (RM62.39 billion) in funding through 2025 to ease food crisis in the region and improve long-term food security, it said in a statement.

The programme broadens ADB’s support in food security in Asia where nearly 1.1 billion people struggle with healthy sustenance due to poverty and aggravated by food prices that have soared to record highs, the Manila-based lender said.

ADB has provided US$2 billion in annual investment in food security since the Asian financial crisis, it said.

“We need to act now, before the impacts of climate change worsen and further erode the region’s hardwon development gains,” ADB president Masatsugu Asakawa said.

The funding will be drawn from across ADB’s sovereign and private sector operations, and seek to leverage an additional US$5 billion in private sector co-financing for food security, it said. — Bloomberg

This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition