The Rockefeller Foundation is focusing its support on five main initiatives benefiting Sub-Saharan Africa:
Strengthening Food Security:
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
Increasing smallholder agricultural productivity with better seeds, soils, markets, financing, and agricultural policies
In 2006, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched AGRA, with a combined investment of $340 million, to improve the productivity and incomes of resource-poor farmers in targeted African countries. An African-based and African-led organization, AGRA is charged with increasing the productivity and profitability of small-scale farms throughout Africa. Since it is not enough simply to increase production, this initiative is also spearheading new methods of diversifying markets to absorb this increase.
Transforming Health Systems
Widening access to affordable, high quality health services by leveraging and coordinating resources
Building resilient, sustainable health systems and helping to bolster the basic survival of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people are two fundamental Foundation priorities. This initiative supports models for systemic health shifts, through African infrastructure and governance.
Developing Climate Change Resilience
Helping communities cope with imminent consequences of climate change
Research shows that climate change will hit already-struggling communities the hardest. The vast majority of African households depend, whether directly or indirectly, on agriculture for their livelihoods. The Foundation is therefore attempting to strengthen the adaptive capabilities of African smallholder farmers in anticipating and responding to climate change. Our support of the weather-index crop and livestock insurance project is one example of our innovative approach.
Linking Global Disease Surveillance Networks
Establishing transnational detection, monitoring, and communication systems to strengthen disease prevention
Particularly in developing countries, infectious diseases (such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, SARS, avian influenza and H1N1) do not just threaten health, but livelihoods as well. This initiative has helped form the East African Infectious Disease Surveillance Network, comprised of the ministries of health of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, as well as academic institutions; and the Southern Africa Center for Infectious Disease Network, covering countries within the Southern Africa development community. These networks are building sustainable methods of exchanging and sharing information on communicable diseases that can improve both health and economic stability.
Harnessing the Power of Impact Investing
Expanding and increasing the effectiveness of investments that solve social and environmental problems and generate a profit
A growing number of African and international investors are interested in deals in Africa that offer both social and financial returns. The Foundation is working to build a global network of these investors around hubs of impact investing activity, including those in East, West and Southern Africa. Efforts are also underway to build impact investing infrastructure and support intermediaries focused on sectors of particular interest to impact investing, such as smallholder agriculture, low-income housing, health care, technology, and renewable energy.
