The English actor, who tested Covid-19 positive last month, launches global coronavirus relief fund with UN.
English actor Idris Elba, the man who played the late South African president Nelson Mandela in the 2013 biographical film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, has just been designated a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and has launched an appeal with his wife Sabrina for a $200 million coronavirus relief fund for rural communities, as per a report by APO.
Elba, who announced he had tested positive for Covid-19 on March 16, launched the global coronavirus relief fund to help prevent the pandemic from creating a global hunger and food crisis, and to keep food systems running.
With $40 million in seed money from IFAD, the multi-donor Covid-19 Rural Poor Stimulus Facility aims to raise at least an additional $200 million from governments, foundations and the private sector to lessen the impact of the disease on rural small-scale farmers and producers.
In a statement, Elba said: “The world’s advanced economies are in the midst of this pandemic right now and, of course, they must do everything they can to help their own people. Every death is one death too many at a time like this. But the fact is, global action is also a matter of self-interest. As long as the pandemic is still raging anywhere, it will pose a threat everywhere. IFAD needs more assistance to carry on the work that is desperately needed to keep food systems operating in rural areas if we are to come out of this crisis together and avoid needless hunger and suffering.”
IFAD is ensuring farmers can access seeds and other inputs, in a move that is hoped will avert a potential food and hunger crisis.
