A bunch of the world’s leading impact investors have joined forces with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to invest $25m in a new growth fund to support African agriculture. Over the next five years, Pearl Capital Partners (PCP), a specialised African agricultural investment fund manager based in Kampala, Uganda, will invest the AACF’s $25 million in at least 20 agriculture-related businesses in East Africa. The fund is supported by $17 million in equity investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Swaziland’s economic crisis has forced the government to put on ice the agricultural input scheme that has made the survival of many subsistence farmers and their families less precarious on communal Swazi Nation Land, where 70 per cent of the 1.1 million population live. 'There is no seed subsidizing now. We used to do it, and we are talking about reviving the programme,' Xoxile Nxumalo, of the agriculture ministry, told IRIN. Under the Swazi Agricultural Development Programme, seeds were sold at a discount or provided free of charge to subsistence farmers working on communal land.

The number of people living with HIV in Egypt is estimated to be 11,000 people, but some say the number must be much higher. 'The stigma around the disease causes fear and mistrust, so people don’t end up getting proper info or receiving already available services such as testing and counseling,' writes Ahmed Awadalla on the blog He refers to a report that shows stigma and discrimination is rife in different sectors. 'It comes from healthcare providers, the government, the media, the workplace, religious leaders, and sadly family and friends.'

A $430-million fund which will give Zimbabwean children and pregnant women free medical care at public hospitals was launched on Monday with the help of the European Union and Unicef. 'The issue of user fees is one of the biggest barriers to poor women and children's access to life-saving and critical health care in Zimbabwe,' said Peter Salama, the Unicef country representative. The Zimbabwe health care system, which has collapsed from years of economic crisis, requires $436-million over the next five years to improve capacity, particularly the delivery of maternal care, according to Unicef.