On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to announce “new investments in African agriculture in a speech in Washington … as a precursor to the weekend Group of Eight [G8] summit at Camp David, Maryland,” Bloomberg Businessweek reports (Bjerga, 5/18). “The president is scheduled to speak to African leaders at a summit on food security Friday,” VOA News writes, adding, “[The] new initiative is expected to target 50 million food-insecure people by boosting agricultural investments” (5/17). According to NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “The leaders of Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Ghana are among those in Washington to launch the new food security initiative, which [USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah] says will include several billion dollars in investments from private companies” (Kelemen, 5/18). “We are never going to end hunger in Africa without private investment,” Shah said, the New York Times writes (Strom, 5/17).

Shah, “who took part in [a] White House briefing [ahead of Obama’s speech on Friday], said 45 private companies would contribute more than $3 billion to help small-scale agricultural projects” as part of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, the Guardian notes, adding, “The $3 billion amounts to a small proportion of the $22 billion pledged by the G8 at L’Aquila in a three-year deal brokered by Obama” (MacAskill, 5/18). Food security also is on the agenda of the G8 summit, taking place Friday and Saturday outside of Washington, D.C., VOA adds (5/17). On Thursday, “U.S. and world leaders met on Capitol Hill to assess efforts to combat child malnutrition — a condition which results in three million preventable child deaths annually and drains billions of dollars in lost productivity and health care costs from poor countries,” a press release from the 1,000 Days Partnership states, adding, “Participants at the ‘Scaling Up Nutrition: Calling All Champions’ briefing called upon G8 leaders to prioritize action on child malnutrition as part of their development and food security discussions at the G8 summit” (5/17).