The Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have announced a $200 million strategic joint partnership to help smallholder farmers across the African continent adapt to climate change.

The partnership, Nanmo, which means “growing together” in Arabic, will invest in climate-adaptive agricultural tools and technologies to build resilient food systems and markets that provide nutrition, income, and economic opportunities to small-scale producers and their communities in sub-Saharan Africa. To that end, Nanmo will fund projects with a clear path to achieving impact across multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including poverty alleviation, agricultural transformation, nutrition, and the economic empowerment of women and youth.

In addition, the partnership will include systems-level research and country-level implementation efforts to adapt to local environments and work to ensure that women small-scale producers can positively contribute to, and benefit from, decisions about how their communities grow food and create jobs. One of the first projects funded by Nanmo will focus on improving the livelihoods of low-income women farmers in multiple African countries, working with the World Poultry Foundation to provide them with improved breeds of chicken for egg and meat production.

“A thriving agriculture sector generates economic growth, but that growth doesn’t automatically benefit everyone equally,” said Gates Foundation co-chair Melinda French Gates. “Nanmo isn’t just about protecting agriculture against climate change. It’s also about making sure that smallholder farmers, including millions of women, can lift themselves out of poverty and invest in a better future for their families and their communities.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/intek1)