Rome, 14 February 2011 – The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has announced that a US$31.7 million loan and a US$294,729 grant will be provided to the Government of Mali to boost agricultural productivity.

The loan and grant agreement for the Fostering Agricultural Productivity Project was signed today in Rome by Gaoussou Drabo, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Mali to IFAD and Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD.

Poverty rates in Mali are high, especially in rural areas. Food insecurity and malnutrition have been aggravated by the recent food crisis and by the constant threat of drought and climate change.

The Fostering Agricultural Productivity Project – cofinanced by the World Bank, the European Union and the Global Environment Fund – is aimed at increasing the productivity and incomes of smallholder farmers and agribusiness operations. The project will strengthen food production systems, including irrigated rice and vegetables, rainfed cereals, cowpea, and fodder, and livestock in the regions of Gao, Mopti, Segou, Sikasso and Tombouctou.

The project is also intended to improve agricultural technologies, increase irrigated land and provide capacity-building for stakeholders at all levels in the targeted project regions. The project will work with smallholder farmers and their organizations to transfer technology and service provision to agricultural producers in an effort to modernize smallholder farming systems. It will also invest in small- and large-scale irrigation to finance infrastructure to improve water management.

The project seeks to benefit more than 60,000 vulnerable households composed of smallholder farmers, particularly women and young people, as well as producers’ and grass-roots organizations in the rural areas.

With this new project, IFAD will have financed 12 programmes and projects in Mali for a total investment of US$187.0 million benefiting some 354,303 households.
Contacts:

Press release No.: IFAD/04/2011

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$12.5 billion in grants and low-interest loans to developing countries, empowering more than 370 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).