Press Release No. IFAD 04/01

Rome, 5 February 2001 - With the right kind of support, the world's rural poor ''can help themselves to escape from poverty'', says a major new report ''Rural Poverty Report 2001: the challenge of ending rural poverty''.

The report, published by the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was launched today at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, by the UN Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan. The report focuses on the rural poor who make up around three-quarters of the world's 1.2 billion poor. ''Hundreds of millions'' of people are mired in poverty in the rural areas, it says.

Whereas the years between 1970 and 1990 witnessed real gains in the fight against poverty, hunger, premature death and illiteracy, progress has since stalled. Rural economies have been neglected, aid for agriculture has dropped from 20 per cent of overall assistance in the late 1980s to 12 per cent today. The ''Green Revolution'' involving high-yielding seeds, fertiliser and irrigation, which began in the 1960s, has also stalled, says the report.

Most of the rural poor make their living from farming or farm labour and the international commitment to halving poverty by 2015 ''must focus on reviving agriculture'', it urges.

Poor-pro agricultural techniques are needed to raise the output of staple foods, make better use of water and increase the demand for labour. Resources need to be redistributed in favour of the poor - this does not imply a neglect of economic growth, rather it can help the process of growth, says the report.

Four aspects are highlighted as particularly important:

• The critical role of food staples in the livelihoods of the rural poor must be recognised in technology and marketing policy. People in extreme poverty usually get around 70-80% of their calories from staple foods.

• Rural poverty reduction requires better allocation and distribution of water. There is a ''tightening squeeze'' on rural water supplies, not least because of pressure to divert water to urban areas and industrial uses. Securing more water to help increase the output of staple foods is a major challenge.
• Economic growth alone, in the rural areas, will not be enough to ensure that the target of halving poverty is met. Inequality may be too great and poverty too deep. ''Redistributive empowerment'' of the rural poor is needed.
• Particular groups merit special attention, especially women, and the importance of the participation of the rural poor in decision making should be recognised.

The report considers the most effective and rapid ways of ending poverty and hunger. Institutional change is needed to enable the poor to have a bigger say in the decisions and forces, which affect their lives. Giving the poor access to land, water, credit, information and technology, and also to health-care services and education, can do much to reduce poverty. When changes have been made in land tenure systems, to give the poor more security, encouraging increases in food output have usually resulted.

Improved farm technology is central to poverty reduction. Biotechnology must be both employment-intensive and sustainable. And the poor must have the power to participate in decisions which determine the technology to be used - if not, they are unlikely to benefit from its implementation, warns the report.

Access to farm inputs and to markets at local, national and global levels is important. This can involve better roads, especially to isolated areas, and improved marketing institutions. Marketing cooperatives can be a solution; controls over traders may be a necessary complement to liberalization and privatization. Access to inputs can helped by facilities such as microcredit.

The answer to rural poverty lies not just in agriculture, stresses the report, ''although this is a big part of the story''. Social changes, when linked to agricultural change, can give the poor more power over the factors that shape their lives.

At the international level, coordination among donors can increase the effectiveness of aid funds and help in the poverty reduction effort.

The report stresses that poverty reduction is a complex and many-sided task, ''requiring sustained commitment....there are no quick fixes, no easy solutions''.

The President of IFAD, Mr Fawzi Hamad Al-Sultan, cautions that increases in food production by commercial farmers are welcome but ''may do little to reduce food insecurity and poverty for the millions of smallholder farmers and herders. A rise in production in their hands will have a significantly larger impact on poverty''.

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IFAD is a specialised agency of the United Nations with the specific mandate of combating hunger and poverty in the most disadvantaged regions of the world. Since 1978 IFAD has financed 578 projects in 114 countries, allocating almost US$ 7 billion in the form of loans and grants. Through these projects, about 250 million rural people have had a chance to move out of poverty.

IFAD makes the greater part of its resources available to low-income countries on very favourable terms, with up to 40 years for repayment and including a grace period of up to ten years and a service charge of 0.75% per year.