Media backgrounder MB/04/08

High-level discussions will focus on IFAD’s development partnership with India and ways to strengthen future collaboration

Rome, 03 April 2008 – Collaborative efforts to tackle hunger and poverty in the country are at the centre of official talks between Indian officials and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) next week.

During his two-day visit (9-10 April) IFAD President Lennart Båge will attend the Global Agro-Industries Forum (GAIF) in New Delhi which will be attended by Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. Båge will meet senior officials from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Union Minister for Women and Child Development. They will discuss India’s development and policy priorities and ways to strengthen the partnership between India and IFAD.

“We have always taken pride in the fact that IFAD has assisted with projects in some of the most remote areas of the country,” said Båge. “IFAD also has an important role in developing replicable models through project activities, and acts as a catalyst for far-reaching innovative change. In areas such as microfinance, tribal development and women’s empowerment, IFAD-funded initiatives have tested institutional and technical innovations that have been scaled up by the Government.”

IFAD and India partnership for development
Since 1979, IFAD has invested US$564.4 million in 21 programmes and projects in India that have directly benefited more than 3.3 million households. India receives more funding from IFAD than any other country in the world.

Working in close partnership with India and other partners, IFAD funds projects for rural development, indigenous peoples’ and women’s empowerment, natural resources management and rural finance.

For example, the North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project for Upland Areas is helping the poorest rural people in several hill districts in the region improve their livelihoods through environmentally sound management of their resource base. Most households in the project area depend heavily or solely on shifting cultivation. The project has particularly benefited women and unemployed youth, as well as jhum cultivators in 1,000 villages, and helped communities establish village development committees. In the long term, project activities will generate on-farm employment for about 6,400 people. With funding from the World Bank, the project will be replicated in all eight northeast states.

IFAD emphasizes the importance of strengthening people’s ability to establish and manage their own organizations. It supports self-help groups, community institutions and village development associations that work in synergy with local self-governments. These groups participate directly in designing development initiatives and become progressively responsible for programme and project resources and management.

The Global Agro-Industries Forum (GAIF), in New Delhi on 9 April. The forum will promote the importance of agro-industries for economic development and poverty reduction.

The forum is jointly organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and IFAD, in close collaboration with the Government of India. About 500 senior representatives from agro-industry, governments, technical and financing institutions, civil society and UN agencies will discuss the potential of agro-industries and the challenges they are facing.

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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 more than 300 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 84 developing countries.