Mr. President,
Delegates,

Thank you very much for having given me the opportunity to first of all thank all members for unanimous accept to Estonian membership application.

Estonia has put the application for membership forward because of various reasons.

First of all, we believe in the mission of IFAD. It is necessary and possible to work together in order to reduce the rural poverty as quickly and as much as possible.
Although, the rural poverty is not a primary problem for Estonia, we feel that we have a problem with rural poverty, wherever it would happen.

We are joining IFAD because we are convinced that we are facing an effectively functioning organization, offering synergy in bringing together donors financing, recipients’ willingness of improvement and acquiring a consolidated know-how.

We are joining IFAD because we would like to add our humble contribution in financing and knowledge to reduce rural poverty.

We are joining very clearly as donors and as an OECD member country with clear commitment to regular contribution.

We think that as a country with recent past of transition to market economy, we can bring along some very specific transition knowledge that could be of help.

We would be interested to work using different forms of collaboration and IFAD-s full flexibility, using our wide area of expertise.

Let me conclude by wishing the general council success in getting us closer to our common goal.  

Roma 22 Febbraio 2012