Release number IFAD/30/08

Rome, 2 June, 2008 - The Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon today visited the new headquarters of the International Fund for Agricultural Development. He praised IFAD and its leadership for the organisation’s long-standing work in eradicating rural poverty.

 “For more than three decades, IFAD has led some of the UN’s most successful development efforts aimed at the rural poor across the world” said Ban Ki-moon.

“IFAD, in particular, represents a unique partnership between OECD, OPEC and other developing countries. You have expanded your investment in agriculture even as so many others have reduced their spending” he said.

Ban Ki-moon was speaking at IFAD on the eve of a High-Level Conference on World Food Security, hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation with IFAD as one of the co-sponsors. The conference starts in Rome tomorrow and will be attended by a host of world leaders amid rising concern about the impact of high food prices. 

Ban Ki-moon said that high food prices were endangering development gains. “Food riots are breaking out. If not handled properly, this issue could trigger a cascade of other crises – affecting economic growth, social progress, and even political security around the world” he said. The Secretary General praised IFAD’s swift move to make available US$200 million to provide poor farmers the inputs they need to plant for the next season.

“For years, falling food prices and rising production lulled the world into complacency. Governments put off hard decisions and overlooked the need to invest in agriculture.  Today, we are literally paying the price” he said.

Ban Ki-moon also praised the Government of Italy for hosting IFAD and the two other Rome-based UN agencies, the FAO and the World Food Programme. “In this very real sense, Italy works for the UN so that the UN may work for the world” he said.

In welcoming Ban Ki-moon, Lennart Båge, President of IFAD said: “The challenges being addressed at this week’s High Level Conference make clear that the demands on us will continue to grow. IFAD will work closely with our partners here in Rome and elsewhere.”

Båge thanked Italy’s Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Enzo Scotti and Mario Cutrofo, the Deputy Mayor of Rome, for the invaluable support extended to IFAD over the years. Båge added that he believed Rome would “continue to increase in importance as the agricultural hub of the world.”

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IFAD was created 30 years ago to tackle rural poverty, a key consequence of the droughts and famines of the early 1970s. Since 1978, IFAD has invested more than US$10 billion in low-interest loans and grants that have helped over 300 million very poor rural women and men increase their incomes and provide for their families.
IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency. It is a global partnership of OECD, OPEC and other developing countries. Today, IFAD supports more than 200 programmes and projects in 81 developing countries and one territory.