Press Release No. IFAD 11/01

Rome, 1 April 2001. Lennart Båge on taking up his appointment as the Fourth President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), stressed that the commitment to halve world poverty by 2015 must focus on rural development and on the role of agriculture. Three quarters of the world’s poor live in the rural areas.

Talking recently to representatives of the media on rural poverty eradication, he said:

''Chronic poverty and hunger have long been particularly tragic aspects of human societies. Today, I believe we have a historic opportunity to bring about a dramatic reduction of extreme poverty within the next decades. The Millennium Summit Targets have provided a framework for action and a measure to monitor progress. Now we must all focus on implementation.''

Båge added ''Many countries, for example in Southeast Asia and provinces in China and India which are more populous than most countries, have in fact halved poverty over the last 25 years. Now the challenge is to achieve this at the global level''.

He emphasised the importance of working in close partnership with all IFAD’s member states as well as with the UN system and other international organisations, in order to ensure that the productive potential of the rural poor is released in a pro-poor environment, thus empowering them to build better lives for themselves, their families and their communities.

Båge's first task on taking office is to meet with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and other Heads of UN Agencies when the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) meets in Nairobi 2-3 April.

With 25 years experience in development cooperation Båge has been involved in rural development, at project, programme and policy level. He has headed more than 70 Swedish delegations to bilateral and multilateral conferences and has also served as Ambassador and Assistant Under Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sweden. For the past 10 years he has been actively engaged with IFAD focusing on policy development and resource mobilisation. He has been responsible for preparing Sweden’s USD 1.6 billion aid budget.

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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. .