Madame Chairperson, Mr. President, IFAD colleagues and distinguished guests. It is my honor to address the IFAD Governing Council on behalf of the United States.

I commend the chair for her handling of the meeting. President Al-Sultan, we thank you for your dedication and commitment, for the last eight years, to alleviating rural poverty around the world and to improving the tools, the mechanisms and the results of IFAD programs. We wish you much success and the best for the future.

United States support for IFAD was strong at its creation and has continued unabated throughout its 23 year history. We have and continue to be a major supporter and a strong believer in the need to address rural poverty and agricultural development. IFAD has valuable assets for achieving that end--including, not the least, the shared commitment of its member governments.

The challenge before us is to rededicate ourselves to the goals that led to IFAD's creation.

• It is true that over the last 15 years both donor and recipient governments and multilateral organizations have placed insufficient priority, and indeed declining priority and resources, on the agricultural sector.

• Too few have followed the example of Egypt in reforming their agricultural policies. In this context, we welcome the World Bank's recent commitment to double resources available for agricultural development if the developing countries themselves endorse this priority area.

• But, we should not underestimate the effort necessary to achieve the reduction of poverty and food insecurity by one-half by 2015.

• Similarly, we should not forget that in the World Bank portfolio review issued in 1994, as the "Wapenhans Report," projects in the agriculture sector were judged the "least successful."

• IFAD is uniquely placed to overcome development problems in this sector. It can use its integrated, participatory rural development approach to create and pilot more successful projects, which other development institutions could replicate.

We welcome IFAD's fifth replenishment agreement. We consider it a good starting point for refocusing efforts on agricultural development and rural poverty. IFAD's commitment to performance based allocation of resources in order to maximize results is crucial and adds IFAD to a growing list of multilateral development organizations adopting this principle.

IFAD's commitment to participate in the HIPC debt reduction program is also an important contribution to development in poorest countries.

To this end we are pleased that the replenishment has been completed. IFAD needs stable support, creative leadership and resource management for the longer term in order to effectively implement the Plan of Action outlined in the replenishment agreement.

• We look forward to reviewing country strategy papers and lending, which take into account enabling environment criteria.

• The primary themes outlined in IFAD's just released Rural Poverty report can be useful to countries in developing and implementing their poverty reduction strategies.

• IFAD's commitment to increase cofinancing can leverage more resources for country poverty alleviation efforts.

• Measuring the impact of IFAD's innovation and catalytic affect will be critical to IFAD in achieving its objectives.

• The key to deepening the impact of our efforts is more effective uses of scarce donor resources in the agriculture and rural sectors.

In closing let me say that the target is clear. We know the challenge is large and complex. IFAD is a key institution for achieving our ends. Prioritization, dedication, and resources will be required from all of us to achieve our mutual goal to end world hunger and poverty.

Statement by William E. Schuerch
Acting Governor of the United States