ROME, Italy, 21 February 2013 – IFAD’s Governing Council convened last week for its 36th Session, focusing on the power of partnerships to reduce poverty and ensure food security in rural communities worldwide. Against a global backdrop of unprecedented economic and environmental challenges, participants looked towards forging alliances for sustainable agriculture with governments, other donors, the private sector and small-scale farmers themselves.

“We know that we are stronger and more effective when we work in partnership,” said IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze, who was appointed to a second term as President at the session. The meeting also featured the admission of three Pacific Island nations – Nauru, Tuvalu and Vanuatu – as IFAD Member States.

The Governing Council, IFAD’s main decision-making body, comprises all of the Member States and meets annually at headquarters in Rome. Immediately before this year’s session, IFAD also hosted the first global meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum, highlighting partnerships with indigenous peoples’ organizations to preserve the cultures and natural resources of marginalized communities.

While these events transpired, a small army of ‘social reporters’ recorded their impressions in real time by blogging, tweeting and posting photos and videos on IFAD’s various social media platforms. The main speakers and panels were also webcast live.

Keynotes and cooperation
The 2013 session opened with keynote speeches by His Excellency Hui Liangyu, Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China, and His Excellency Vittorio Grilli, Minister of Economy and Finance of the Italian Republic. Archbishop Dominique Mamberti delivered a message from His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.
Vice Premier Hui urged the international community to focus on helping developing countries achieve food security and eliminate rural poverty through both North-South cooperation and South-South exchanges between developing countries. Minister Grilli stated that reaching food security is not only about investing financial resources in agriculture but also entails “sharing know-how, technologies, innovation, managerial experience and relationships.”

In his own opening statement, IFAD President Nwanze reiterated the organization’s ambitious goals for enabling rural people to overcome poverty and thanked Member States for supporting institutional changes “that have transformed IFAD into a more agile, efficient and effective partner” in recent years.
On a related note, a Governing Council side event underscored the international community’s growing interest in measuring impact and reporting on the effectiveness of development interventions. Senior staff and experts from IFAD and several of its partners spoke at in the event. Among other points, they stressed the need for a joint learning agenda with the ultimate objective of standardizing impact-evaluation systems across various institutions. (View the webcast.)

Variations on a theme
The Governing Council agenda also included a panel discussion on the secrets of successful and mutually beneficial partnerships. Panellists from Egypt, Ethiopia, Guatemala and the Netherlands recounted their direct experiences with smallholder producers who have organized themselves into cooperatives, thereby expanding their operations and increasing market access. (View the webcast.)

A subsequent panel delved further into this topic, exploring the power of partnerships for investing in sustainable rural development. Moderated by David Nabarro, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Food Security and Nutrition, the plenary discussion featured James Mwangi, CEO and Managing Director of Equity Bank, Kenya, and a panel of technical experts on public- and private-sector partnerships. (View the webcast.)

Further reinforcing the theme of partnership, the session included the first-ever award of excellence for collaboration between the three Rome-based United Nations agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organization, IFAD and the World Food Programme. The three agency heads – FAO’s José Graziano da Silva, IFAD’s Kanayo F. Nwanze and WFP’s Ertharin Cousin – presented the honour to the country team in Mozambique. They congratulated staff from all three agencies for working jointly with the Government of Mozambique and smallholder farmers to improve agricultural quality and reduce post-harvest losses. (View the webcast.)

Informed, inspired and challenged
In another key moment, representatives of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum presented the Governing Council with a synthesis of deliberations from the global meeting they had just concluded. Their statement emphasized that indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge and livelihood practices can “inspire new models of sustainable development.” It went on to recommend specific steps that IFAD and governments can take to ensure indigenous peoples’ participation in the design, implementation and monitoring of rural development initiatives. (View the webcast.)

One final high point – and another first for this year’s Governing Council session – was the Governors’ Round Table, a new forum designed to foster more strategic interaction among IFAD Member State representatives. Moderated by Ambassador Miguel Ruiz Cabañas Izquierdo, Permanent Representative of the United Mexican States to IFAD, this inaugural round table addressed the issue of building partnerships to finance agricultural and rural development. (View the webcast.)

By the time the Governing Council was over, participants had been informed, inspired and challenged by the above discussions and many more. And IFAD, through its social reporting network, had shared the experience with interested and influential people worldwide.