Press release No.: IFAD/32/08

The total project cost is US$38 million. IFAD will contribute 45 per cent, or US$17 million. The project will be implemented over the next six years.

Rome, 12 June 2008. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will lend US$17 million to Guatemala to carry out a national rural development programme in five departments in the country’s central and eastern regions.

The programme — with a total cost of US$38 million — will be implemented over the next six years in the poorest communities and municipalities of El Progreso, Zacapa, Jalapa, Jutiapa and Santa Rosa departments.

The agreement was signed today in Rome by IFAD President Lennart Båge and Guatemala’s Ambassador to IFAD, Francisco Eduardo Bonifaz Rodríguez.

The programme will upgrade basic infrastructure and improve socio-economic conditions for some 30,000 smallholders, microentrepreneurs, artisans and landless peasants, mainly women and young people.

Lack of access to production resources such as land, water, technology and farm credit is the major cause of poverty in the area, in addition to the lack of marketing and training opportunities available to the poorest.

The programme will offer courses in business management and marketing, and will facilitate access by smallholders and artisans to the credit and technical assistance they need to improve their productive endeavours.

The programme will also strengthen the social fabric in communities, mainly people of mixed Mayan and Ladino origin, by promoting participatory decision-making on local development.

Since 1986, IFAD has made loans of US$80 million to Guatemala to finance six rural development and poverty reduction projects valued at US$120.8 million overall.

---

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.