Zoom Launch: Faith Leaders in Africa's Open Letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - 23 February 2021

Please Join us for the Faith Leaders in Africa's Open Letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Zoom meeting on 23 February, 10 am to 12 pm.

SAFCEI is launching a Faith Leader's Open Letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that has been attracting a lot of interest. The letter calls, from research and moral standpoints, for the Foundation to stop pushing industrial agricultural in Africa and to move towards sustainable and agroecological approaches in Agriculture.

Million Belay from the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) will be the keynote speaker, with faith responses from Shazli Yousif, the Muslim Supreme Council of South Africa, and Merylene Chitharai, the Religions For Peace Climate Youth Initiative.

The webinar will highlight shared concerns on the role of Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Gates) in the region.

Whilst Gates and AGRA state their intention is to provide food security for Africa, we contend that the support of large-scale industrial mono-crop farming that has expensive and often damaging hybrid or genetically modified seed and chemical inputs, will not provide food security to the vast majority of Africa's citizens.

If you would like to sign onto the open letter, please do so here, and please share widely.

RSVP to info@safcei.org.za by 18th February to attend. Data requests to be made by completing the online form.