Madam Chair,
Distinguished Governors,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

In delivering my statement I feel not only very privileged but honoured in addressing this august body of the 24^th Governing Council entrusted with double responsibilities of electing the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development for the coming four years and deciding on a number of policy issues of relevance to the Fund.

Madame Chairperson,

Let me also seize this opportunity to pledge our appreciation to the manner in which you are guiding this extremely important Council and my delegation is very confident that you will lead our deliberations as in the past to its successful conclusion.

Having accomplished the important task of electing the President of the Fund, I wish on behalf of the Government and People of Ethiopia to wholeheartedly congratulate His Excellency the future President of IFAD.

Mr President, Ethiopia attaches great importance to the mandate of IFAD, particularly geared to the elimination of hunger and alleviation of rural poverty and our delegation believes that you have all the professional qualities and relevant work experience to make the Fund a 21^st century organization.

It is with this in mind that my delegation fully endorse your appointment as President of the Fund and Ethiopia assures you its support, cooperation and remains a reliable partner in the quest for achieving the global goal of having a world without hunger for which IFAD stands for.

Mr President, it is very clear from the outset that the structure of IFAD is drastically changing. Therefore, we wish to kindly remind you to seriously see into the future composition of the senior management of the Fund and it is incumbent upon you to continue to maintain a striking regional balance with special attention to Africa where its marginalization has been increasing.

I wish also to put on record our appreciation to the outgoing President Mr Fawzi Al-Sultan for a wonderful job done during his two terms of office. We are grateful for his untiring effort to serving the rural poor. Ethiopia wishes him a pleasant future.

Madame Chairperson,

Even at the beginning of the third Millennium and at a time of unprecedented wealth in the developed world, a large population of the developing countries still suffer from lack of access to basic needs such as food.

We, in poor developing countries, continue to put food security issues high on our development agendas. We have in place the right development policies and allocated a reasonable percentage of our meagre resources into the sector. However, despite concerted efforts, we, particularly in Africa, cannot finance our development plans from our own sources. Thus, we are not in a position to produce adequate food to support our ever increasing populations.

Meaningful bilateral and multilateral assistance’s be financial or technical have to be forthcoming to agriculture and rural development if our rural populations have to be food secured. It was this food insecurity situation that triggered the convening of the World Food Summit in November 1996. Halving the current number of the undernourished by the year 2015 was set as goal of the Summit. An assessment of the achievements nearly five years after the Summit is far from the target.

Although I don’t wish to indulge into the task of enumerating the underlying reasons for achieving below target, it is worth touching upon the crucial elements impacting negatively on food security. In this context I wish to indicate the following:

Official development assistance going into the sector is on the decline. Agriculture and rural development is getting less attention both at National and International levels. In this context IFAD – as an institution with a comparative advantage in promoting sustainable livelihood in rural areas where the good majority of the population of the developing world live, need secured resource. And it is incumbent upon the GOVERNING COUNCIL OF IFAD TO CONTINUE TO SEEK LASTING SOLUTION to the Resource issue of the Fund. One area of resource mobilization is members’ contribution to the replenishment. Ethiopia continues to honour its financial obligation no matter how modest it might be and we encourage others to do the same.

Generally, natural and man-made disasters are on the rise. Rehabilitation and development activities are not as desired. Instead Emergency relief operations eclipse over long term development ventures. Therefore, it is recommendable that global efforts in the Elimination of Hunger and Reduction of Poverty be in a coordinated fashion avoiding isolated initiatives and fitting into countries’ development plans.

While we appreciate a prudent use of resources within the fund or in any United Nations system, however, a fund allocated for specific purpose should not be redirected into another area since a solution in one area is a problem in another and this is witnessed in one of the documents before this governing council.

Importantly, we have to keep in mind that globalisation is impacting on development/poverty reduction. Assuming globalisation in its simplest form is the concentration of benefits of trade, finance and information in the developed world then it would be presumptuous to say the least that globalisation is high income and better standard of living. Therefore, globalisation perse might sound good to all.

But what remains worrisome is that the benefits are unevenly spread. Therefore, instead of taming globalisation it must be replaced by localisation. Those with the leverage have to operate globally to supplement the local effort. For equitable global system to occur it is necessary to develop capacities and capabilities in the poor countries before harvesting the benefits of the system and to this effect globalisation from developed economies must be complementing and not complementing.

Taking trade as a case in point, the challenge was developing countries had either limited access to market in developed economies or their primary goods received poor price. They earn a lot less foreign exchange earning to finance their food security and development as well as settle their debt. The opportunities are developed countries have started opening their markets and hopefully will remove all the barriers and restrictions to make us the right partners.

Equally the debt relief to poor developing countries is so vital. In this regard we wish the enhanced Highly Indebted Poor countries Debt Initiative (HIPC DI) be operational in many indebted countries including Ethiopia. The criteria for qualification have to be simple and flexible. The mechanism has to take into account unforeseen factors that hamper its effectiveness and shall not at times indefinitely be postponed on minor issues.

Debt relief to poor developing countries is to enable rural Farmers have access to resources. Increase income and encourage saving and investment. In this regard, the move by bilateral and multilateral creditors in debt relief is encouraging. When these resources are directed to development Hunger will be eliminated and poverty reduced.

We commend the initiative and we are looking forward to its immediate implementation.

Madam Chairperson,

Coming back to the focus on the IFAD’s mandate, we are delighted to see a strategic thrust based on issues of regional significance to be in the right direction. Appreciation given to the degradation of the environment in Eastern Africa is timely. Deforestation is rapid and desertification is a very serious problem. Our land is fragile and not suited for agricultural production unless its fertility is gained. It is in this light that we pledge our support to the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and Ethiopia believes the mechanism need the necessary resources at its disposal to effectively operate.

IFAD’s role in the identification of appropriate policy and institutional constraints is certainly helpful. Assistance in capacity building; investment identification and resource mobilisation are worth commending. In this context Ethiopia is in full agreement with the future strategic sub-regional approach of the Fund and note with satisfaction to its assistance to Ethiopia in the areas of research dedicated for food security; the development of rural microfinancing and capacity building. However, more is desired in the support to small-scale irrigation given the precarious nature of rainfed agriculture in the country and its attendant unstinting famine.

Ethiopia needs financial and technical assistance from international financial institutions, including World Bank and IFAD to harness, harvest and utilize its abundant water resources to combat drought and famine, food security and rural development are our development priorities. Therefore, we call upon the international community to shift its assistance from that of relief to development. Help us to use our waters’.

It is very true that the Eastern Africa is among the most vulnerable, among other things, to natural disasters and here I would like to make reference to the initiative of the Secretary General of the United Nations to address the long-term food security, agricultural development and related aspects. I wish to refer to it because we, in Ethiopia, strongly believe its implementation is within the mandate of IFAD, and the other Rome-based UN Agencies have the opportunity to act in synergy and can contribute to the elimination of poverty. They have to act and act better.

Madame Chairperson,

We have carefully reviewed the program of work and budget of IFAD for 2001 and our delegation approves the recommendations of the Executive Board.

Madame Chairperson,

I wish not to conclude without reiterating the importance of the role of the International Fund for Agricultural Development in the elimination of hunger and the reduction of poverty still unabated. In this regard, I shall not but simply emphasise the need for beneficiary member-driven program of work as well as a strategic plan for IFAD accompanied by adequate and sustainable resource if the Fund as one of the Food and Agricultural UN Organisation is to contribute to the global Food security targeted in the World Food Summit Plan of Action.

Finally, we congratulate and welcome the Republic of Iceland for joining the Fund.

Thank you all for your kind attention.