Governors,
Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure and privilege for me to attend the 33rd Session of the Governing Council of IFAD on behalf of Austria.

For the first time IFAD is holding its annual gathering of Governors on its own premises. The new format can be seen as the Fund’s willingness to grab opportunities and adapt to a changing environment.

Flexibility and adaptation capacity are the necessary requirements for an international institution like IFAD to be able to successfully fulfil its mandate in a rapidly changing world.

IFAD’s membership expects the Fund to deliver on its objectives.
This requires an adequate organizational structure and an appropriate operational strategy. The last replenishment exercise discussed these topics intensively and committed the Fund to redesign itself in this regard to produce tangible development results in an efficient and effective way.

The Institution is definitely on the right track in its efforts to be more efficient in meeting the challenges of rural development.
However, I want to encourage management to continue the modernisation of the Fund’s organisational structures and to sharpen its profile through competent work in the field and on the international stage.

IFAD’s focus is on agricultural and rural development. Rural poverty alleviation und increases of food production are the core objectives of the Fund. Thirty years of work and experience with the world’s poorest rural people and communities has accumulated a rural development specific knowledge in this Institution that no other institution has in this density.

I said it before and want to repeat that given its limited financial capacity the Fund must try to leverage this knowledge and competency to maximise its development effectiveness and its contribution to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.

This can best be achieved through innovative approaches and projects that merit to be up scaled and multiplied by IFAD’s clients and development partners.

In the light of changing global priorities the mission of IFAD is again becoming more important and the Fund must be fit to live up to this challenge.

The outbreak of the food price crisis two years ago has triggered a shift towards agriculture and food security, the very goals of this institution, as prime development targets. A common understanding has emerged that investment in agriculture must be increased if poverty reduction and food security for the growing populations can be achieved.

The 2008 Word Development Report dealt with Agriculture for Development and highlighted the importance of increasing productivity in developing countries for assuring global food security and meeting MDG targets.

The G8 and G20 summits of 2009 set up the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme. It foresees among others an implementing role for IFAD. In this context IFAD will be able to prove its capacity.
The Second Revision of the EU-ACP Cotonou Agreement explicitly recommends the enhancement of agricultural production and productivity in ACP States.

These examples underline IFAD’s salient mission. I encourage the Fund to make strong efforts to be involved and use the emerging initiatives as platforms for the dissemination of its expertise and skills.

Membership and management of the Fund can be satisfied that the 8th Replenishment expeditiously entered into effect last December. The Institution can now fully concentrate on the implementation of the established operational priorities for the 8th Replenishment period.

The guiding principles for the Fund’s actions will have to be results delivery through differentiated country approaches, achievement of operational effectiveness through country ownership, collaboration and partnerships with other development players, engagement with the private sector, gender equality, women’s empowerment, engagement in climate change issues and sustainability of its development assistance.

In the light of the 8th Replenishment volume we support the proposed enhanced annual lending level and expect a tangible contribution to rural poverty alleviation.

Consequently we can also approve the proposed Budget for 2010 which uses the innovative format of results based budgeting.

Mr. President you have done an excellent job during your first year in office. I wish you continued luck and all the success for the coming years.

In conclusion my thanks also go to the excellent staff of the institution for its professional work and proven dedication.

17 February 2010