Opening Session

• Opening Statement by the Chairman of the 27th Session of the Governing Council of IFAD, His Excellency Guido Mantega, Minister of State for Planning, Budget and Management of the Federative Republic of Brazil

• Address by His Excellency Mr Blaise Compaoré, President of Burkina Faso (English | French)
  

• Message from His Excellency Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, delivered on his behalf by His Excellency Guido Mantega, Minister for Planning, Budget and Management of the Federative Republic of Brazil
  

• Statement of the President of IFAD
  (Arabic | English | French | Spanish)

• Statement by Mr Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

• Statement by Mr Jean Jacques Graisse, Senior Deputy Executive Director of World Food Programme

Panel Discussion on the Theme of Trade and Rural Development (Arabic | English | French | Spanish)

Moderator: Ms Maureen O’Neil, President of the International Development Research Centre

Panelists:

• Dr Michael Hofmann, Director-General of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of the Federal Republic of Germany
• Mr Martin Khor, Director of the Third World Network (TWN), Malaysia
• Ms Victoria Tauli Corpuz, Executive Director of the TEBTEBBA Foundation (Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education), The Philippines
• Mr Lennart Båge, President of IFAD

• Asia and the Pacific: Rural Enterprises and Poverty Reduction

• Central Eastern Europe and Newly Independent States: Promoting Farmers’ Access to Markets in Transitional Economies

• Eastern and Southern Africa: Sector-Wide Approaches and Budget Support Mechanisms: Challenges and Opportunities for Rural Development

• Latin America and the Caribbean: Remittances and Rural Development

• Near East and North Africa: Managing Water Scarcity in the Near East and North Africa

• Western and Central Africa: Rural Finance in Western and Central Africa