The Africa Solidarity Trust Fund (ASTF) has donated $1 million to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to combat the worsening Desert Locust upsurge in the Horn of Africa. The decision came at a meeting of the ASTF Steering Committee at FAO headquarters in Rome on Wednesday.

"We have a window of opportunity before the next planting season. We must act now. Flexible funding, like that of the ASTF, helps us move fast," said Maria Helena Semedo, FAO's Deputy Director-General for Climate and Natural Resources, who is currently attending a ministerial briefing on Desert Locusts on the margins of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.