The Global Alliance against Fusarium Tropical Race 4 (TR4) has received support from the word bank, one of the most important sources of project funding in developing countries.
The Alliance’s Executive Committee engaged in wide-ranging discussions with delegates from the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in a working meeting that also included members of producer associations, companies representing the entire banana chain, researchers, and senior officials from the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
Executive Secretary of the Alliance, Gabriel Rodríguez, said there is every possibility that the World Bank will be supporting their work, and it is now a question of deciding the form that that support should take.
Referring to the possibilities of financial support for the Global Alliance against Fusarium TR4, Christopher Ian Brett, Lead Agribusiness Specialist at the World Bank, pointed out that in 2023 the institution’s portfolio of investments in the sector included 247 projects costing USD 4 billion.
The Tropical Race 4 (TR4) strain of the Fusarium fungus, which causes a disease for which no treatment currently exists, poses the biggest threat in more than half a century to a crop that is especially important for vulnerable populations, who obtain up to a quarter of their daily calory intake from bananas.
