Madam Chairperson,
Your Excellency Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda,
Your Excellency Kanayo F. Nwanze, IFAD President,
Your Excellency Mario Monti, Prime Minister of the Italian Republic,
Your Excellency Joseph Nyuma Boakai, Vice-President of the Republic of Liberia,
Our host, Hon. Andrea Riccardi, Italian Minister for International Cooperation and Integration Policies ,
Distinguished Governors,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all allow me to join the speakers before me in congratulating the newly elected members of the Bureau of the Governing Council of IFAD and to pledge my delegation’s full support and cooperation to the Bureau and its new members.
Madam Chairperson, this year’s theme of “Sustainable smallholder agriculture: Feeding the world, protecting the planet” is befitting this occasion particularly as the world strives to attain a balance in the utilization and protection of the planet’s natural resources as evidenced in the recently concluded COP 17 in Durban and the upcoming Rio +20 meeting in Brazil. Moreover, smallholder farmers being the majority of those utilizing land particularly in developing countries should be in the forefront of any sustainable agriculture initiatives. It is against this background that smallholder farmers be empowered in order to have the desired impact of sustainable food production.

To that effect,  it is imperative that as many smallholder farmers as possible be included in initiatives that strive towards sustainable agricultural productivity. This, Madam Chairperson can only be possible if Funds such as IFAD,  avail the necessary funds that would help smallholder farmers to farm in a more sustainable manner. It is against this background that IFAD identify countries with many smallholder farmers and use its own independent funding policies to avail funds to these countries without basing its target group for loans and grants on the World Bank categorization of countries. This is due to the fact that the World Bank ranking does not take into account countries with highly skewed income distributions such as Namibia where more than half of the country’s population depends on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood. As a result,  farmers in these countries are disadvantaged as their countries can’t access grants and loans at concessionary terms. 

Fellow Governors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Namibia urges the Governing Council of IFAD to take into consideration at this crucial moment while the Fund is currently revising its lending policies and financial regulations and terms,  to particularly consider those member states with a high Gini coefficient to access funds from IFAD on favourable terms. Such a review would not only help more smallholder farmers to farm more sustainably, but it would also mean improved agricultural infrastructure and productivity in developing countries which are currently disadvantaged by the World Bank rankings despite the high poverty levels found among smallholder farmers in these countries.

Lastly, Madam Chairperson,

allow me once again to give my and my delegation’s support to the Bureau of IFAD Governing Council and I thank you all.  

I thank you

23 février 2012