Porto Alegre, Brazil, 7 March 2006

Mr. Chairman and
Honourable Minister
Distinguished Civil Society Representatives
Ladies and gentlemen

I am very honoured to be with you today.  This is the most important international initiative on agrarian reform since the 1979 Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development which dealt with one of the core issues of poverty and hunger: lack of secure access to land and natural resources by millions of rural men and women. I would like to thank the Government of Brazil for hosting this conference and FAO for organising it

Mr. Chairman,

The most basic and undisputed fact about extreme poverty world-wide is that it is overwhelmingly rural. Three quarters of all extremely poor people in the developing world live in rural areas. They depend on agriculture - principally smallholder agriculture - and related activities for their livelihoods. Recognizing this fact, we know that any effort to reduce extreme poverty worldwide must focus on reducing rural poverty by enhancing the productive and economic roles of poor rural women and men, and by facilitating their access to opportunities and assets.

Given the importance that land has in rural economies, access to and control over it   are central to any development strategy. That was indeed the understanding when in 1979, the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (WCARRD) adopted a peasants' charter calling for securing access and control over land by the poor. Today, 27 years later, we are still far from having a more equitable, efficient and sustainable land tenure structure.

About a quarter of the world's rural poor people are without land. And about one sixth has land which is insufficient to even have the potential to improve their quality of life. Many of them are women and indigenous peoples, and for them lack of secure access to land and other natural resources is a major cause of vulnerability and extreme poverty. In addition, they have little power to influence and change such structures since they, themselves often are the victims of social exclusion, political subordination and cultural marginalization.

Prospects for improvement have unfortunately not been promising either.  Growing populations, intensive agriculture and commercialization, declining soil fertility and worsening environmental degradation have all increased the demands and pressures on natural resources and tenure systems around the globe. Processes such as globalization and liberalization, urbanization and industrialization, and concentration of capital and wealth, have also led to tremendous changes in international, national and local economic and political relations. Thus rural poor people are facing new forms of competition with more powerful interests, not only in terms of productivity and products, but also for the basic resources - however limited - that they depend on to make a living.

Mr. Chairman

This is certainly not the most encouraging scenario and we all have the obligation to do more and to do better.

Successful pro-poor reforms depend not only on the political will of governments. They also depend on the active participation of citizens and on a vibrant and proactive civil society that can express the will of the people not only by representing the interests of the poorest and most marginalized, but also by translating these into constructive and meaningful dialogue and proposals.  There is no doubt that a major challenge for any successful pro-poor policy is therefore to bring together policy-makers and civil society.

This is key for genuine and sustainable change, and for avoiding prescriptive “blueprint” policies that have very often not produced the expected results. Rural livelihoods are diverse and there are many paths towards poverty reduction. There is a great diversity in agrarian structures across regions and countries. The social, cultural and economic contexts as well as rules, customs and procedures for getting access to land and other natural resources vary from country to country.  So does the pressure on land and its scarcity. Therefore, there is no one unique solution that can be applied to address the acute problem of access to land by the poor. To make progress under such diverse conditions that is the true challenge we face.

Mr Chairman,

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was created in 1979 to fight poverty and hunger. Since then, we have approached this task through investments in rural development, supporting programmes and projects in its member countries, working with governments and grassroots organizations creating spaces for dialogue between various stakeholders.  Our approach has been bottom-up and working from the perspectives of the rural poor.

Recognising the diversities, IFAD has been providing support both at national, local and community levels to address land and natural resources issues. Building on an inclusive process of dialogue and empowerment of the poor, the Fund has provided support to the implementation of more secure land tenure systems in projects such as the Ceara Rural Development Project in Brazil, the Rural and Agricultural Development Project of the Alto Mayo in Peru and the Integrated Rural Development Project in Ecuador.

Presently, in Brazil, IFAD is participating in the Government Agrarian Reform Programme through the sustainable development of agrarian reform settlements in the Northeast Region.

Similarly, IFAD's project on Sustainable Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Beni in Bolivia and the Indigenous and Afro Ecuadorian people's Development Project are helping with the demarcation of indigenous territories.

IFAD is supporting partnerships for policy dialogue in Uganda. It is collaborating with other donors in the harmonisation and implementation of land related initiatives in Madagascar. It is undertaking land tenure assessments in Orissa, India and supporting a number of related initiatives in Gash, Sudan. These diverse and country-specific efforts are in addition to the Fund"s usual investment activities for enhancing land productivity, improving livelihood systems, and providing support for the development of pro-poor technologies.

Together with our partners, among them FAO as a co-founding member, we helped to establish the International Land Coalition, an alliance of UN and intergovernmental organizations, civil society and governments in order to forge joint actions to improve the secure access to land by the rural poor. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the coalition. We very much look forward to having its achievements highlighted and assessed.

The Fund is also providing space for dialogue among the governments representatives, civil society and development organisations to come together, exchange perspectives and experiences around the potential benefits and challenges emerging from free trade agreements.  At the level of MERCOSUR countries, a concrete example is the FIDAMERCOSUR programme which aims at strengthening and consolidating a regional forum on policy dialogue through the REAF -  the Family Agriculture Specialised Meeting.

Another such endeavour is the Farmers' Forum on the occasion of IFAD"s Governing Council Meeting last month. The Forum was attended by more than 55 national farmer organisation representatives along with representatives of international social movements and non-government organisations. The forum recommended that access to land and natural resources should be put back on the public agenda at all levels.

Through these programmes and many others that we have supported around the world, we have learned the vital role that civil society organizations can play in sustaining, expanding and deepening change and policy reforms.  But they cannot be left without support.  International agencies should play a catalytic role by facilitating dialogues between governments and representatives of small farmers and pastoralists, rural women, indigenous peoples, coastal communities and other marginalised groups.

Mr. Chairman

This International Conference with the parallel forum of civil society organisations gives us an opportunity not only to reaffirm our commitment, but also to work together in the identification and support of policies aimed at removing the structural and institutional causes of rural poverty. Inequitable distribution of land is one of them. IFAD is committed to work on these issues and we hope that our partners in development as well as governments and civil society will find effective ways to do so.

More than three decades ago, Mr. Josué de Castro, a physician turned diplomat from Brazil, wrote:

''Underdevelopment is a product of misuse of natural and human resources .... Underdevelopment and hunger can only be eliminated from the face of earth through a global development strategy which will mobilize production means in the interest of the community''. 

Mr. Castro stepped beyond medicine and diplomacy and to carry on with his fight for the eradication of hunger and poverty. This conference is therefore rightly dedicated to this great son of the soil of Brazil and we will pay the right tribute to him by having a profound and serious dialogue on the various policy options and by translating these into successful reforms for ensuring access to land and economic development. Let us not come back in 27 years and see that change has, once again, eluded us.

Thank you.