George Clooney Helps South Sudan Rebuild From Decades Of War With Investment In Country's Coffee

At the suggestion of spokesman George Clooney, the prominent Hollywood actor who has been outspoken about the importance of ending decades of civil unrest in South Sudan, Nespresso will begin exporting coffee from the country in an effort to help the African nation, which gained independence in 2011, find some economic stability.

Clooney, who has been involved with Nespresso for the last few years, has said that the majority of his earnings from Nespresso commercials are used to maintain a spy satellite that monitors the activities of Sudan and Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes against Darfur. 

In addition to the release of limited-edition capsules that will go on sale this month, Nespresso will invest an estimated $2.6 million in South Sudan by the end of 2016. The company has also teamed up with TechnoServe, a nonprofit organization that trains farmers in coffee production.

"Coffee farms have a great history of building peaceful pockets in very volatile areas," Clooney wrote in an email to Bloomberg. "We drank our first cup this summer and it tasted just a little bit better knowing that it was from people who have worked so hard for normalcy and peace."