SEATTLE, WA — On Monday, March 23, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are sponsoring a secret meeting in London to promote a recent report they commissioned detailing in clear terms how to privatize the seed and agricultural markets of Africa- without African stakeholders having a seat at the table. A coalition of grassroots community organizations across the US, UK, and Africa are criticizing the gathering for:

Inviting corporations, development bodies, trade bodies and aid donors, yet not inviting any representatives of impacted organizations;

Promoting the privatization of African seed production and distribution through top-down changes to African states’ national regulations;

Building a nontransparent network of corporate, philanthropic and state-based actors aiming to expropriate African land, seeds and agriculture.

The UK activists plan to hold a demonstration outside of the meeting in a message of solidarity with African groups who are resisting what they are calling a new form of colonialism. Community Alliance for Global Justice will be holding a solidarity demonstration, simultaneously with the London action, outside the Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle, WA.