Press release No.: IFAD/53/08

Ian Johnson urges switching focus to generating wealth, Moise Mensah says NERICA shows success is possible.

Rome, 21 October: To observe the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty at IFAD, the Vice-President Kanayo Nwanze hosted a panel discussion on ‘What needs to be done to achieve MDG1 targets?’’

“We must not let the current global challenges, the financial down turn and the food price crisis, distract us from the people the Millenium Development Goals were created for, the poor” Nwanze told the gathering.

The impact of the recent financial crisis loomed large in the round table debate at IFAD headquarters in Rome, with participants emphasising the impact of the concurrent crises – food, fuel and finance – which poor people and poor nations are ill-equipped to cope with.

Ian Johnson, former Vice-President, World Bank, spoke of the need to switch language and focus from ‘removing poverty’  to ‘generating wealth’ if agriculture is to become a driver for achieving the MDGs.

“Agriculture has an incredible multiplier effect on development. If you don’t invest in and grow agriculture then you need to grow something else at a very high rate”, he said.

“Although globally, progress in the fight against poverty has been registered, figures from IFPRI show that progress in absolute terms in Sub-Saharan Africa has been minimal” said Moise Mensah, former IFAD Assistant President and former finance minister of Benin.

Yet Mensah pointed to achievements which show progress can be made when the political will is there. He cited the success of NERICA, the new variety of rice that combines greater drought resistance with higher protein count and better yields.

“New markets can begin, there are new opportunities for communities to earn income and cross border trade can help promote food security” he said.

IFAD President Lennart Båge, opening the event, underlined while food and fuel prices were no longer rising at the dramatic rates seen earlier this year, there was now the risk of price volatility to which rural poor people are not sufficiently resilient.

Moderator Kwesi Atta-Krah Deputy Director-General, Bioversity International said that recent events “are not just shifting the goal posts globally, right now they are shifting the playing field itself’’.

“We have to re-examine the whole issue of the regulation of food markets at both national and international level” IFAD´s Acting Director, Policy Division, Jean-Philippe Audinet said.

“Agriculture is a risky business, especially in tropical countries, so we cannot expect adoption of more intensive practices, without reducing at least one of the factors of uncertainty” he added.

In his message to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that the current crises are “threatening to negate the progress made to reduce poverty and hunger in many parts of the world.”

Nwanze echoed the Secretary-General’s concerns in his closing remarks at the IFAD debate. “The poor have the least say in these crises, and have fewer opportunities to manage these changes” he said.

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.