The Pailapata women's group receives the technical assistance necessary to grow lettuce in a greenhouse near El Tambo.
IFAD photo by Giuseppe Bizzarri

Name of the project
FIDAMERICA: Latin America on-line

Location of the project
Latin America

Responsible organisation
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

Description

The avenues explored by IFAD-financed projects are promising but, there are hurdles to be crossed before reaching a successful conclusion. Project teams often work in remote areas and have to deal with a broad array of problems. Sharing experiences, knowledge and ideas is one of the most efficient ways to overcome the hurdles.

IFAD’s FIDAMERICA network, on-line since November 1995, promotes the exchange of experiences and information among IFAD-financed projects in the region, between those projects and the headquarters in Rome, and among project staff, rural communities and other development partners. It also supports and motivates project teams to search for information and broaden their contacts.

The project’s goal is to strengthen rural organisations by linking them to the network, since today ''being poor'' means ''lacking access to'' – not just access to resources and capital but also to information. By doing so, rural development takes on another meaning: improved decision-making capacity at the local level.

The project’s benefits are clear to Pykati-re, chief of Pucanu, a village with a population of about 250 located in the heart of Brazil's vast Amazon rain forest (the closest town is 400km away). He would like to see his village have more contact and exchanges with the outside world: ''It was good to participate in the FIDAMERICA electronic conference, because we were able to learn about other communities who are struggling to improve their living conditions. It is our best argument for showing that, with the help of true friends, we have the ability to learn many things that are needed in order to make good use of the Internet. If the village of Pucanu had its own Web site, we would be able to draw the attention of other companies that could buy oil produced by other villages. It would also help us to invite individuals and organisations that are interested in developing cooperation programmes with our people to come and visit us and learn about our work. We could then discuss ways in which we could receive technical and financial assistance.''

Results achieved

• The network has linked up to 34 IFAD-financed projects in 16 Latin American countries. The projects in turn work with approximately 400,000 poor rural households, with a total estimated budget of US$ 700 million.

• FIDAMERICA is much more than a network for exchanging information and knowledge: it is helping to forge new partnerships to combat rural poverty more effectively.
• FIDAMERICA hosted information exchanges on such topics as Andean camelids (llamas, alpacas, vicuñas), forestry issues, and project monitoring and evaluation. Electronic discussion forums involving several countries examined the roles of farmers’ organisations and financial services for the rural poor. The ''knowledge community'' established through the project is also opened to non-IFAD projects.

• The network also serves a virtual farmer’s market that local organisations can access in order to satisfy their needs.

• ''FIDAMERICA has helped to reduce communication costs and gives users a sense of belonging to a vast group of professionals who want to contribute effectively to the solution of problems posed by rural poverty in Latin America.'' (Juan Moreno Belmar, PROCASUR Rural Development Training Programme in Chile)

• The network now includes the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking Caribbean