The Chairman of the Council,
The President of IFAD,
Distinguished Governors,
Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen

Mr. Chairman,

On behalf of the Kenya delegation, let me express our satisfaction with the arrangements put in place for the Fund's 29th Governing Council. Likewise, we join previous speakers in appreciating the importance of a forum such as this one as it provides a platform for interaction and sharing of ideas through the round table and the plenary discussions on themes that are pertinent and crucial when considering rural development and poverty reduction.

We welcome the opportunity that this forum provides because like most sub-Saharan African countries, agriculture is the engine of economic growth. For us, the agricultural sector accounts for 26% of our GDP, contributes to 80% of the employment, and 57% of the national income both directly and indirectly. In addition, about 80% of Kenya's population derive their livelihood from agriculture through crop and livestock production, fishing, forestry and exploitation of other natural resources. It is therefore imperative that for the economy to grow, the agricultural sector must also grow.

Mr. Chairman,

Kenya's efforts towards improved growth in agriculture are embraced in various government policies which includes the Poverty Reduction Strategy, the Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation and the Strategy to Revitalize Agriculture.

Mr. Chairman,

One of the major challenges confronting most of the sub-Saharan countries is the unpredictable weather conditions that have seen  frequent droughts in the last five years. In all these years, Kenya has not been spared. The current drought has caused severe famine affecting almost 3 million Kenyans. The situation has been declared a national disaster. The Government of Kenya is fully engaged in efforts to address this crisis.

Mr Chairman
The famine situation, has to a large extent slowed the progress that Kenya had made towards economic recovery and improved rural livelihoods. In humble realization that these problems are not unique to Kenya in the region, we take the opportunity to commend IFAD's  contributions and the concerted effort so far made by international and regional bodies but urge them to increase their level of intervention to avoid a looming catastrophe.

Mr. Chairman,
Kenya appreciates IFAD's focus on the poor, marginalized and vulnerable communities in developing countries, such as ours. As a country, we look forward to IFAD stepping up its loan portfolio to Kenya to enable us to reach more resource poor communities. However, as we indicated during the 28th Governing Council Meeting, we still are concerned about the implementation of the  Performance Based Allocation System. Although we support the system in principle, we urge that caution be exercised in its implementation as it may impede rather than enhance financial flow to the poor due to circumstances prevailing in their respective countries and which they may have no control.

Mr. Chairman,
The Kenya Government will continue to support IFAD's course by meeting its obligations. In this regard, it will make a contribution of US $ 100,000 to the Seventh Resource Replenishment.

Finally, Mr. Chairman I would like to take this opportunity to thank the organizers of this IFAD Governing Council Meeting for making it a great success. The efforts IFAD has made in the past 1 year towards supporting the implementation of activities globally is indeed appreciated.

I thank you.