Rome, 20 July 2010: Kanayo F. Nwanze, the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), will undertake an official visit to Zambia. During the three-day visit starting on 21 July, he will meet with President of the Republic of Zambia, Rupiah Banda. The visit aims at strengthening collaboration between IFAD and the Zambian government, strengthening synergies among development partners and advocate for more investments to be channelled to the agricultural sector for rural development priorities.

Nwanze will also meet with senior government officials including ministers of finance, agriculture and livestock, as well as officials from other UN agencies and partners and beneficiaries of IFAD’s programmes. IFAD’s strategy in Zambia, as agreed with the Government, is built upon the country’s national development plans, which aim to promote broad-based economic growth and poverty reduction. One of the pillars of the country strategy is to reinvigorate the smallholder livestock sector, which has been severely affected by repeated outbreaks of livestock disease.

Under the Smallholder Livestock Investment Project (SLIP), IFAD’s efforts are targeted at strengthening national capacities for disease control and restocking poor smallholders who lost their cattle to disease, and who have the resources and potential to utilize and maintain cattle for draught animal power.

Nwanze will travel to Livingstone, Choma and Kalomo to visit some IFAD-supported projects such as the Livestock Investment project where he will have the opportunity to witness a demonstration of tagging and branding of local cattle in Chief Mukuni’s village. Nwanze will also make field trips to meet the beneficiaries of an irrigation project in Kalomo, funded in partnership with the World Bank and the Choma women goat traders.

IFAD has provided loans worth some US$155.3 million dollars to help finance 11 programmes and projects in Zambia benefiting more than 500,000 households in the country. Early projects worked to improve household food security by ensuring support services, increased access to productive assets and dissemination of technical knowledge. Eight of these operations have been completed.

Press release No.: IFAD/47/2010

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) works with poor rural people to enable them to grow and sell more food, increase their incomes and determine the direction of their own lives. Since 1978, IFAD has invested over US$12 billion in grants and low-interest loans to developing countries, empowering more than 350 million people to break out of poverty. IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized UN agency based in Rome – the UN’s food and agricultural hub. It is a unique partnership of 165 members from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), other developing countries and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).