Dear Madam,
Dear Sir,

On the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the GTZ and IFAD are jointly organising a forum to be held in Berlin on 20 - 21 May 2003. The theme is “Institutions, the Key to Development - Building Alliances to Empower the Rural Poor”.

You are cordially invited to participate in the Forum.

Lacking secure access to assets and with their restricted access to markets, rural producers are often poor. Informal and formal institutions like access rules are biased against the rural poor. Individually, the rural poor cannot get their voices heard to change these rules. Therefore, their few existing organisations need to be strengthened, to enable their members to overcome poverty. Institutions are of paramount importance, and changes in the prevailing asymmetric rules are a vital prerequisite for rural poverty reduction.

The objectives of the Forum are:

• Furthering our understanding of the importance of institutions for rural poverty reduction;
• Sharing experience and knowledge on the processes involved in institutional transformation in the areas of rural finance, technology, land, water and decentralised governance;
• Building strategic alliances among the organisations participating in the Forum to pursue the agenda in operational terms, as well as in terms of advocacy at the local and global levels.

The technical segment will be a full-day session on 20 May and continue during the morning of 21 May. The policy-oriented segment, which will address a broader audience including policy makers, will be held during the afternoon of 21 May. The Forum language is English.

• Agenda
• Registration form

We would appreciate your early reply, and look forward to your contribution. Kindly return the registration form to martina.hanke@gtz.de.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Bernd Eisenblätter		Dr. Klemens van de Sand
Managing Director		Assistant President
Deutsche Gesellschaft fürTechnische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH		Programme Management Department IFAD