New Report Reveals Plan to Cut Global Poverty by 50% is Failing

Rome, 12 February 2001 – The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) introduces its new poverty report at a press briefing on Monday, February 19, 2001, 12:30 pm at Stampa Estera in Rome. Entitled, Rural Poverty Report 2001 – The Challenge of Ending Rural Poverty, the report states that world leaders will not meet their commitment to cut global poverty in half by 2015, with only 10 million people escaping poverty annually, instead of the expected 30 million. According to the report, the ramifications of this failure are especially acute in sub-Saharan Africa where the rate of poverty reduction is six times too slow to meet the 2015 target. The report calls for renewed efforts to focus on the oft-neglected needs of the rural poor. “Those living in rural areas still form the majority of the world’s poor – and all scenarios for the future suggest that this will still be true 30 years from now,” says the UN Secretary General Mr. Kofi Annan. “If we are to live up to our Millennium goal, we need a much greater and clearly focused effort.”

“The failure stems in large part from a misconception that the main poverty problem has moved from the countryside to the burgeoning megacities of the developing world,” says IFAD President Fawzi H. Al-Sultan. “Seventy-five percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, most of whom make their living in farming or farm labor. As this figure will drop only to sixty percent by 2020, a focus on rural poverty and agricultural development is crucial to the reduction of poverty overall.”

“Our experience has repeatedly shown that if the right conditions are created to support the productive activities of the poor, they can work their way out of poverty and, at the same time, add significantly to national output and development,” according to Fawzi H. Al-Sultan. “The first aspect of the strategy to bring about such conditions is to reverse the marginalisation poor groups have suffered through most of history.” This requires the empowerment of the poor through access to assets (such as land, water and capital), technology (especially that which can be adopted at low cost, low risk and encourages labor-intensive production methods), and markets (local, regional and global). It also requires control by the rural poor within and over institutions, which mediate access by the poor to these productive resources and the rules determining the benefits of such access.

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.