Top international figures gather in Rome for IFAD Governing Council

Rome, 17 February 2011 – This year’s Governing Council meeting of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will bring together prominent international figures, youth leaders and high-ranking government officials. Top of the agenda is the potential for young people in developing countries to drive successful smallholder agriculture and rural economic growth. The meeting gets underway at IFAD headquarters in Rome on 19 February.

Opening addresses will be made by Kofi Annan, Chairman of the Board of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and Princess Haya Al Hussein, United Nations Messenger of Peace and wife of the Vice-President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates.

A plenary panel discussion on the first day will focus on the compelling reasons to place rural young people and smallholder agriculture at the forefront of global strategies for food security, poverty reduction and income growth. Titled “Feeding future generations: young rural people today – prosperous, productive farmers tomorrow”, and moderated by former CNN International presenter Tumi Makgabo, the panel will hear views from representatives of IFAD’s 165 Member States and youth leaders and entrepreneurs from around the world. Panellists will include Kwesi Ahwoi, Ghana’s Minister for Food and Agriculture; Carlo Petrini, founder and president of Slow Food International; Dayana Rivera Rivas, Rural Farmer Promoter of the Association of Small-scale Coffee Growers of La Marina in Columbia; and Kevin Cleaver, IFAD Associate Vice-President for Programmes.

The second day of the meeting will include four panel discussions with a regional focus – covering Asia and the Pacific, the Near East, North Africa and Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The panels will explore the challenges faced by rural young people and feature agricultural and rural development experts, young entrepreneurs from rural areas and leaders of youth-based organizations.

UN statistics show that there are more than 1 billion people in the world today between 15 and 24 years of age, and that this group makes up on average 20 per cent of the population of developing countries. Against this backdrop, the panels will consider why rural areas are not benefiting from this huge resource and why so many young women and men are leaving rural areas to seek opportunities elsewhere.

IFAD believes that young people have enormous potential for the innovation and risk-taking that is often at the core of growth and development in rural areas, particularly of smallholder agriculture. This development is critical to meeting the food security challenges presented by a rising global population.

The Governing Council will review IFAD’s work over the past year. It will also take stock of the agency’s progress on increasing both the size and effectiveness of investment in agriculture, with the goal of empowering poor rural women and men in developing countries to achieve higher incomes and improved food security.

During the course of 2010, IFAD expanded its investment portfolio and activities in all the regions where it works. The organization also boosted resources mobilized through cofinancing by about 140 per cent over 2009. Together with IFAD’s own financing for programmes and projects, the funds committed reached US$2.4 billion, about 80 per cent more than the total for 2009.

New realities, new challenges: new opportunities for tomorrow’s generation

Delegates will also discuss IFAD’s flagship Rural Poverty Report 2011, released in December. The report calls for greater support to training for poor rural people – particularly the young – by reversing the longstanding neglect of educational opportunities that are relevant in rural areas.

The Rural Poverty Report is the culmination of several years of work by IFAD staff and outside partners. It spotlights the fact that global poverty remains a massive and predominantly rural phenomenon. About 70 per cent of the developing world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people live in rural areas.

Increasingly volatile food prices, the uncertainties and effects of climate change, and a range of natural resource constraints will further complicate efforts to reduce rural poverty. But the report also shows that profound changes in agricultural markets are giving rise to new and promising opportunities for the developing world’s smallholder farmers to significantly boost their productivity. This will be essential to ensure enough food for an increasingly urbanized global population, estimated to reach at least 9 billion by 2050.

“There remains an urgent need to… invest more and better in agriculture and rural areas,” the report says. And this investment must be based on “a new approach to smallholder agriculture that is both market-oriented and sustainable”.

During the past decade, the overall rate of extreme poverty in rural areas of developing countries – people living on less than US$1.25 a day – has dropped from 48 per cent to 34 per cent. Dramatic gains in East Asia, particularly China, account for much of the decline.

However, the report points to an alarming increase in the actual numbers of extremely poor people in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa. And this is despite the fact that the percentage living on less than the equivalent of US$1.25 a day – at 62 per cent – has actually dropped slightly since IFAD last issued a Rural Poverty Report in 2001. The latest report also notes the persistence of rural poverty on the South Asian subcontinent, which is home to half of the world’s 1 billion extremely poor rural people.

• For more information on IFAD’s annual meeting and a detailed programme, please visit IFAD website
• For images of IFAD’s work please visit the IFAD image bank.
• The IFAD social reporting team will report live from the Governing Council. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

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Press release No.: IFAD/05/2011

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).