Press release number: IFAD 38/02

Barangan Saragih Current Chair of IFAD's Governing Council To Launch Regional Report

Hotel Novotel Soechi Medan

Post-Johannesburg, IFAD's Poverty Strategy for Asia to be Unveiled

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations agency specifically mandated for poverty reduction in the rural areas of the developing world has chosen Medan city in Indonesia as the venue for launching its Strategy for Poverty Eradication in Asia and the Pacific. A Symposium, organized in collaboration with the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture will hear the major issues of the strategy and establish ways of implementation and discuss related policy matters.

The issue of indigenous populations living lives of hardship and misery in marginal areas ; women's rights to land and control of assets and reforming property and tenurial rights of marginalized minorities will be on top of the agenda. The Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan recently released IFAD's Rural poverty Report 2001. Just prior to its release IFAD carried out an assessment of rural poverty in Asia and the Pacific. The Fund's strategy for poverty eradication in the region emphasises the importance of focusing on Less Favoured Areas, including remote uplands and mountains, marginal coastal areas and insufficiently watered drylands.Fundamental to poverty reduction in the region is assisting the rural poor to increase their capabilities through greater access to self-help, local accumulation, new skills and technologies.

The number of people living on less than USD 1 a day is highest in the Asia and the Pacific region;in 1998 there were some 800 million of a world wide total of 1198.9 billion. Some people and places are more vulnerable to poverty than others. In rural Asia and the Pacific region, these people are:

• women, often part of female headed households
• the landless, or marginal farmers and tenants
• various indigenous peoples and internally displaced persons, socially excluded people like the scheduled castes, victims of landmines
• pastoralists and coastal fisherfolk.

The poorest places in the region are resource - limited:

• mountainous or hilly areas
• marginal and degraded lands
• rainfed cropping areas
• many coastal areas

The Minister of Agriculture of Indonesia, Mr. Bangaran Saragih, currently chair of IFADs Governing Council will be the principal speaker at the Symposium and will officially launch the Report.On the opening day of the Symposium a press conference will be addressed by the Agriculture Minister jointly with the Assistant President of IFAD, Mr. Phrang Roy. The Symposium will bring together representatives of civil society, academics, donor representatives, senior Indonesian Government officials and IFAD officials both from its Rome headquarters and from countries in the Asia and the Pacific region.

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Note to Editors: Press Conference on 25 September 2002 at 9.45 a.m. Hotel Novotel Soechi Medan, Tel. 62-61-4561234. Refreshments will be served.

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The International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD is a specialized 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 603 projects in 115 recipient countries and in the West Bank and Gaza for a total commitment of approximately USD 7.3 billion in 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 repayment and including a grace period of up to ten years and a service charge of 0.75% per year.