Mr President,
Fellow Governors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

This year’s Governing Council coincides with IFAD’s 30th anniversary. This is reason enough to look back and take stock of what has been achieved, and to look ahead at the challenges to be tackled in the coming years.

We congratulate IFAD on its achievements in the past 30 years. IFAD’s contribution to rural development and the eradication of poverty is widely acknowledged. With poverty in rural areas still being rampant, IFAD’s unique mandate to enable the rural poor to overcome poverty is today as relevant as it was at the time IFAD was established.

Three of every four people in developing countries live in rural areas, and most of them depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Against this background, the World Development Report 2008 has made a strong case for giving agriculture a higher priority on the development agenda. The report emphasizes that agriculture continues to be a fundamental instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction; to exploit its development potential and foster rural development requires country-specific customized approaches and innovative policy initiatives. This sounds like a job description for IFAD!

Climate change is a threat to everybody everywhere. It will affect all of us. However, it will have a disproportionate impact on the rural poor.  Poor people who depend on agriculture are most vulnerable to climate change. UNDP’s latest Human Development Report warns that up to 600 million more people may face malnutrition in case of a breakdown of agricultural systems as a result of increased exposure to drought, rising temperatures, and more erratic rainfall. The semi-arid areas of sub-Saharan Africa, where there is already a high prevalence of abject poverty, face the danger of productivity losses of 25% within the next fifty years. Southern Africa faces especially acute threats: According to the IPCC, yields from rainfed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50% between 2000 and 2020. Climate change puts development at risk. It is a grim picture.

However, there are affordable ways to deal with climate change. We want IFAD to join the global efforts to limit the negative impact.  Tackling climate change should be a priority of IFAD’s operational agenda, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation measures, and be mainstreamed in all operations.

A comprehensive strategy spelling out IFAD’s contribution to fighting climate change would be welcome.

Mr President, we welcome that IFAD embarked on an ambitious reform agenda tackling the severe flaws an independent external evaluation had revealed in 2004/5 with a view to position itself as a focused, efficient, and results-oriented organization. IFAD’s Action Plan for Improving its Development Effectiveness’ sets the right priorities: organizational effectiveness and human resources, country-level engagement, and knowledge management and innovation. The implementation of the reform agenda has made significant progress. We feel that IFAD is on the right track.

However, as you, President Båge, have repeatedly said, there is no room for complacency. Change management is a continuous process.

The World Development Report, which I would like to refer to one more time, comes to the conclusion that the global institutions created for agriculture in the 20th century are inadequately prepared to address today’s interrelated and multisectoral agenda. It calls for institutional reforms and innovations to facilitate greater coordination across international agencies and with new actors in the global arena. In the context of a changing aid architecture, IFAD has to review its role and to clearly define its strategic focus. Being the only international financial institution mandated to contribute exclusively to reducing poverty and food insecurity in the rural areas of developing countries, IFAD has a unique mandate. But I would like to repeat what the German Governor already stated at last year’s Governing Council. IFAD has to underpin its unique mandate by a proven track record of successful project implementation and, by doing so, turn it into a comparative advantage. IFAD needs to provide clear proof that a specialized agency can achieve better results than other organizations which deal with rural development as only one of many areas. IFAD needs to demonstrate that it can show the large IFIs new innovative approaches − and warn them against straying into the wrong approach.

The issues I have touched upon − the implementation of the reform agenda; the focus on development effectiveness; differentiated, innovative approaches to promoting agriculture; IFAD’s role in tackling climate change; and IFAD’s role in changing aid architecture − are most likely to be, along with other topics, on top of the agenda of the forthcoming replenishment negotiations.

Mr President,
Germany looks forward to playing a constructive role in the replenishment process.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
thank you for your attention.