Rich countries must help Africa because they have changed the climate

new York The pandemic and the war in Ukraine are “gigantic setbacks” in the fight for global food security and health, according to Microsoft founder and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates. Because of their responsibility for the climate crisis, the rich countries are morally obliged to help the states, especially in Africa – even if the Ukraine war and the pandemic are increasingly burdening their own national budgets.

“The rich world created this gigantic problem that is already damaging Africa’s agricultural productivity with higher temperatures,” Gates told the Handelsblatt.

Africa could double its harvest if the world community invests enough in new seeds that are resistant to drought, for example. To do this, however, one would have to be more open to genetic engineering, even if some industrialized countries rejected it for their own agricultural systems. Gates demands: “Because humanity has ruined the climate, there is no other way to double the productivity of African agriculture.”