Caterpillar Foundation announces $11 million in investments for Africa

The Caterpillar Foundation, supported by Caterpillar Inc., continues working to alleviate poverty worldwide, including on the African continent, through a series of investments. Since 2010 the foundation has invested $30 million in African programs that address access to clean water, energy, empowering girls and women, and microfinance, as well as food and shelter. The foundation targets investments to organizations working in areas of policy that will enable sustainable growth and development across the continent.

The foundation is making an initial investment of $5 million with the ONE Campaign to address advocacy and public policy needs and the lack of access to power, which is a key factor in making it more difficult for Africa to lift itself out of poverty. An additional grant with ONE is planned for later this year.

Another $5 million is being invested to bring clean water to two countries in Africa through charity: water, whose mission is to bring clean and safe drinking water to every person in the world. This investment will help fund an extension of a current water distribution pipeline into Tanzania and Ethiopia. An extension of this pipeline and the addition of water access points are expected to benefit more than 126,000 Tanzanians and Ethiopians who currently travel long distances to collect water from unsanitary sources.

The foundation also is investing more than $1 million in energy and cookstove programs in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda to help address the deadly issue of household air pollution from traditional cookstoves.