Press release No.: IFAD/48/08

50 per cent of the funds dedicated to Africa through CGIAR system

Rome, 6 October 2008 - The European Commission (EC) and IFAD have signed a new EUR 67.5 million Contribution Agreement to finance research through the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

The main aim of this new agreement is to ensure that scientific and technological advances and agricultural research will be made available to the world’s 450 million smallholder farms, on whom depend the livelihoods of over 2 billion rural poor people.

With this new contribution, the total funding assured by the EC through IFAD to the CGIAR system amounts to Euro 112.5 million, the largest contribution of a single donor to a specific programme through IFAD's Supplementary Funds.  

The program seeks to develop smallholder agriculture and rural innovation – which is the key to combating the current food price crisis - by investing in research. In particular the programme will support research on the sustainable management of resources and ecosystems.

The programme will have a specific focus on Africa, where 50 per cent of the total funding will be invested. The expected results of the programme will contribute to:

• pro-poor scientific, technological and institutional innovations and policies
• pro-poor agricultural research and extension programmes, research capacity building, responding to beneficiaries’ needs and mobilising their resources
• boosting active participation of low-income smallholder farmers in research/extension programmes, taking into account remote and marginal areas
• the learning through exchange of information and experience, through scientific and producers' networks and (multi)stakeholder platforms; with a view to fostering collaborative innovation

To achieve maximum impact, especially for Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a clear need to move from a supply-based approach to a demand-based one. This means forging partnerships between scientists, poor smallholder farmers, service providers and other main stakeholders.

The main partners in the programme are the 15 Centres for International Agricultural Research, and their research and dissemination partners: the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), the regional and sub-regional fora, Universities (South and North), research institutions, governments, the private sector, NGO’s, UN organisations and most importantly agricultural producers (through farmers organizations).

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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 400 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 85 developing countries and one territory.