Opening remarks by the Director of IFAD's Near East, North Africa and Europe Division

As a pivotal year comes to an end, it is once again time to take stock of IFAD’s investments in projects developed by the Near East, North Africa and Europe Division (NEN) in 2011.

This year NEN has overseen 49 projects in 19 member states, with IFAD loan commitments totalling US$747.6 million. The corresponding figures for 2010 were 44 projects and a total of US$655.7 million in loan commitments. This constitutes an increase of 11 per cent in investments and 14 per cent in projects, thus reflecting IFAD’s pledge to add to investments in NEN.

In addition, the division has invested a total of US$35.7 million in grant projects, 78 per cent in support of large grants.

In 2011, NEN continued its successful efforts to enhance the operational quality and social impact of projects and achieve greater responsiveness and agility by decreasing project design time, which contributed to the continued improvement in project design processing and implementation.

The overarching theme of political and social transformation has been of critical significance in the Arab region during 2011. The ongoing regional changes demonstrated the fundamental importance of the role of youth employment in shaping the economic, strategic and social outlook of the Arab world. IFAD has always been mindful of the consequences of failing to provide job opportunities for young men and women, particularly in rural areas. The Fund has been one of the leading supporters of youth employment as a means of promoting of social and economic stability in the region and, with the reform process now under way, the potential to capitalize on IFAD’s groundwork, commitments and experience in this part of the world has increased.

Abdelhamid Abdouli
Officer-in-Charge, Near East, North Africa and Europe Division

IFAD supports efforts to develop an Arab water security strategy


	Taysir Al-Ghanem, IFAD's Regional Communications Manager for the Near East, North Africa and Europe region, addressing participants during the session held on Securing Basic Human Needs for Sustainable Development at the Arab Water Forum

Water scarcity and climate change were once again the main topics of discussion during the well‑attended Second Arab Water Forum held in Cairo, Egypt, from 20 to 23 November 2011.

The Forum underlined the importance, in a region that is getting warmer and drier, of resolving the issues of increasing water scarcity and climate change through innovation, science, investments and integrated water management and technological solutions. It also reiterated the need to strengthen knowledge, exchange information and recognize the fundamental role of water and food security in ensuring a stable political and economic future for an Arab region that is currently going through dramatic social and political transition.

Participating for the second time in the event, IFAD’s input included a multimedia information stand at the Forum’s exhibition, illustrating the Fund’s long experience in addressing comprehensive water issues in rural areas of the Arab region. The stand was extremely well received by participants and delegates and on the second day was visited by His Excellency Dr Mahmoud Abu Zeid, president of the Arab Water Council and former Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation.

At the first session, dedicated to the theme of securing basic human needs, Dr Taysir Al‑Ghanem of IFAD delivered a presentation on the lessons learned from IFAD's food security portfolio. Dr Al‑Ghanem highlighted the successes of IFAD programmes, in particular the West Noubaria Rural Development Project in Egypt, which encouraged the rural and urban unemployed and university graduates to “go rural” by taking up agricultural activities in rural areas that generated new income opportunities, increased local economic output and reclaimed desert land.

A number of hot topics characterizing the water sector in the Arab countries were also addressed in specialized workshops organized by the attending organizations and participants; IFAD held its own panel discussion on the socio‑economic and policy dimensions of rainwater harvesting. The panel was composed of Mr Mohamed Abdelgadir and Dr Taysir Al‑Ghanem of IFAD, Mr Ard Schoemaker of the RAIN Foundation and Dr Abdel Aziz Ibrahim of the Arab Water Council.

The panel discussion touched upon various aspects of rainwater harvesting, such as its adaptability to climate change, production scalability and other advantages, in addition to the limitations of related project implementation in rural areas. All panellists agreed that rainwater harvesting must be an agenda priority of policymakers and that awareness, investments and information-sharing must increase to ensure a wider adoption of rainwater harvesting as a sustainable and environmentally‑friendly solution to water scarcity in the Arab region. The recommendations, solutions and commitments assembled from the panel have been passed on to the Arab Water Council to be presented in the upcoming Sixth World Water Forum in Marseille, France, and Rio+20 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2012.

The Second Arab Water Forum concluded with a declaration calling for closer regional cooperation as an indispensable element in achieving water and food security. Water issues are of the utmost importance in the development and security strategies of Arab countries. The declaration also called for Arab countries to bring into play more non‑conventional sources of water such as water reuse, rainwater harvesting, desalination and innovative storage solutions. Finally, problems compounded by climate change should be addressed through innovation and science, backed up by a single, integrated regional water data and information centre that is kept up‑to‑date and is accessible to all those making decisions and policies.

Unleashing the potential of young and poor rural people


	Nabiha Farrag - A young Egyptian entrepreneur showcasing her handicraft products to other participants at the workshop-fair held in Cotonou, Benin, dedicated to young entrepreneurs.

Four young entrepreneurs from four NEN countries – Egypt, Moldova, Syria and Yemen – participated in a four-day workshop, Youth Entrepreneurs – Agents of Change, held in Cotonou, Benin, from 10 to 13 October 2011. The workshop was organized by IFAD’s West and Central Africa Division and the Phelps Stokes Fund and in collaboration with the Government of Benin, Songhai Centre, Fundação Cultural Palmares, Fundación Activos Culturales Afro and other partners. As a follow‑up to the first Meeting on Youth Entrepreneurship and Rural Microenterprising held in Cartagena, Colombia, in November 2010, the Cotonou workshop aimed to further promote knowledge exchange and cooperation among young rural entrepreneurs in low‑income developing countries.

The four NEN young entrepreneurs presented an overview of their businesses and the successes and difficulties they had encountered in developing them, together with lessons learned from their experiences and their aspirations for greater cooperation and exchange with counterparts in other developing countries.


	Ebtesam Abdullah Saad, farmer and young entrepreneur from Yemen, presenting her products at the fair.

One of the NEN young entrepreneurs, 22-year‑old Ebtesam Saad from Tihama, Yemen, provides a good example of successful youth entrepreneurship in the region. She not only is a farmer, but also runs a successful grocery shop, chairs a savings group and holds literacy and family planning classes for her community. “I am proud of my various activities. I have a grocery store that I run together with my mother and my siblings. I have two hectares of farmland where I grow potatoes, tomatoes, sorghum and different types of vegetables”, she explained.

Ebtesam’s farmland produces 15 tons of potatoes and 1.5 tons of tomatoes each year and she can count on an annual income of 600,000 Rials. Ebtesam – a savvy farmer – knows that for her farm to have a good yield and a secure income she needs to invest in seeds and fertilizers. “And this is precisely why I spend 60 per cent of my income on inputs and buying fuel for the generator we use for irrigation”, said Ebtesam.

Another feather in Ebtesam’s cap is the savings group she chairs. “You know, it is impossible for women to have access to credit, so what we did was to get organized and set up our own savings group”, she said. “The group started in 2008 and today has 31 members – all women. So far we’ve given out 64 loans for a total of 845,000 Rials”.

This women’s savings group provides loans ranging from 15,000 Rials to 180,000 Rials and requires no guarantee or collateral. To date, everyone has repaid their loans in full. “I am looking forward to showing others that women can be self-sufficient and independent, that women are creditworthy, and that, as entrepreneurs and business people, women are as good as men, if not better”, Ebtesam said. “I hope that by the time I have my second child, at least 70 per cent of the women in my community have an income‑generating activity and can stand on their own two feet”, she added.

NEN organized an interactive panel discussion focused on youth unemployment, underemployment and inactivity during IFAD’s thirty-fourth Governing Council session held in Rome in February 2011. The event aimed to promote and share practices, strategies and lessons learned on how to empower rural youth. This represents a great challenge for the region.

The panel explored ways in which 31 million young people in the Near East and North Africa subregion and 9 million in the Central and Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States subregion can gain access to decent job opportunities. It also looked at how agriculture and agribusiness can be part of the solution and reflected on how to overcome current obstacles, which range from low productivity to market deficiencies, water and land scarcity, inadequate education and gender inequity. The panel discussion featured country experiences from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt and Yemen. It also highlighted the investments made by the private sector to create jobs and the business environment that has made this possible. The panel concluded that regional integration efforts and the opportunities they create for rural youth need to be further examined, as does the advocacy role civil society plays in shaping a vision for youth development and empowerment.

IFAD presents findings of its Rural Poverty Report prior to the Islamic Development Bank annual meeting in Jeddah


	IFAD delegation, with Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) representatives, addressing a discussion forum at the IsDB annual meeting in Jeddah.

As the Ministers of Finance, Economy and Planning from 56 member states of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) gathered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for the annual meeting of the Bank’s board of governors in June 2011, IFAD hosted a discussion forum on opportunities for rural communities in developing countries.

IFAD is the IsDB's strategic partner in reducing hunger and poverty in member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). “Thirty years ago, IFAD pointed out that combating poverty and hunger should be on the global agenda," said IsDB Vice President (Operations), Birama Sidibe. "Rural infrastructure is important in poverty reduction. The IsDB is interested in how technology can make a difference in alleviating poverty and hunger.”

A number of seminars held in conjunction with the IsDB annual meeting looked at the key role that development finance institutions can play in economic empowerment and job creation for young people.

The IFAD Rural Poverty Report 2011 urges further action and support particularly in areas where the OIC member states have invested resources to bring about economic growth. The report argues that smallholder agriculture can lift millions out of poverty, but only if it is market-oriented, profitable and environmentally sustainable. It also maintains that national policies and investment approaches must fully recognize that farming on any scale is first and foremost a business.

“While we face enormous challenges to ensure food security in developing countries, particularly in OIC member states, there are also great opportunities,” said IFAD’s Chief Development Strategist, Henock Kifle, who presented an overview of the themes and recommendations stated in the Rural Poverty Report. “The degree of focus that the international community places on smallholder agriculture will determine whether or not we succeed in achieving food security for all in the coming decades.”

The participants emphasized the importance of smallholder agriculture and the rural non-farm economy in driving poverty reduction and growth, and called for attention to be given to issues concerning gender equity and youth.

The President of IFAD, Kanayo F. Nwanze, addressed the IsDB annual meeting in 2010 and highlighted the longstanding productive partnership between IFAD and the IsDB. IsDB member states and the Arab states of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in particular, played a decisive role in the establishment of IFAD. In 2009, the two organizations signed a cofinancing agreement worth US$1.5 billion for 26 priority poverty reduction programmes and projects in several of the member states.

As of April 2011, IFAD had invested US$5.3 billion of its own resources in 372 projects, enabling a large number of poor rural families in OIC member states to escape poverty and achieve food security.

From science to sustainable agriculture: IFAD draws media attention to the need for more technology transfer to boost food production in NEN


	Science journalists attending one of the panel discussions at the 7th World Conference of Science Journalists in Doha. Photo ©WCSJ2011.

More than half of the food consumption requirements in the Arab region are met through imports, making it the most food-insecure region in the world. Increasing the region’s own food production is essential to reducing dependence on imports and improving sufficiency ratios. This can be extremely challenging under the current severe water scarcity and climate change conditions. However, science and technology offer ample opportunities to boost Arab agriculture on a sustainable basis.

Against this backdrop, IFAD organized a lunchtime session on “Arab Food Security: From Science to Sustainable Agriculture” on the second day of the seventh World Conference of Science Journalists held in Doha, Qatar, from 27 to 29 June 2011. An estimated 800 science journalists from 89 countries gathered to learn more about global scientific issues, share information and discuss today’s challenges. Organized by the World Federation of Science Journalists in collaboration with Qatar Foundation and the Arab Science and Technology Foundation, and co-sponsored by a number of international organizations including IFAD, the event offered several interesting lectures, workshops and panel discussions about the best and most innovative ways of reporting on scientific results in key areas such as health and epidemics, climate change, biodiversity and agriculture.

IFAD’s lunchtime session, which was attended by over one hundred journalists, focused on the need for more and better linkages between the science represented by agricultural research and relevant technologies and the farming community in the Arab world that would benefit from their transfer and deployment. The session also sought to elaborate on the role and potential of science, research and technology transfers in augmenting production while addressing issues of rural youth employment and food security and how to better disseminate scientific results to farmer communities and smallholders.

NEN invited two country partners, the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the West Noubaria Rural Development Project, to showcase their experience in the field and their collaboration with IFAD. Dr Mahmoud El Solh, Director General of ICARDA, delivered a presentation on the role of scientific research in boosting food production and sustainable agricultural development entitled: “The Role of Science in Arab Food Security in a Changing World".

Dr Awad Hussein, Director of the West Noubaria Rural Development Project in Egypt, illustrated the application of appropriate technologies and research results in development projects and their impact on agricultural production and food security.

The end goal is to enable smallholder farmers and producers to meet the challenge of securing food availability and affordability and reducing vulnerability to price fluctuations. IFAD and its partners are among the most experienced development organizations in the field of transferring knowledge, research outputs and appropriate technologies to food producers across the region. Based on their experiences, the event highlighted workable solutions and enabling policies that would help increase the successes achieved so far in support of sustainable agricultural systems in the region.

IFAD also organized the participation of Dr El Solh as a panellist at the conference session dedicated to agriculture and set up its own booth at the conference exhibition. IFAD’s booth attracted a large number of visitors and conference participants.

Country programme features

IFAD provides a US$9.1 million grant to boost the fisheries sector in Yemen


	His Excellency Khalid Abdulrahman Al-Akwa, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Yemen to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Agencies, meeting IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze at the signing ceremony for the Yemen Fisheries Investment Project. Photo ©IFAD/Giulio Napolitano.

IFAD is to provide a US$9.1 million grant to finance a new Fisheries Investment Project in Yemen that will create economic opportunities for poor small-scale fisher households nationwide. The grant agreement was signed on 18 November by Khalid Abdulrahman Al-Akwa, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Yemen to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Agencies in Rome, and Kanayo F. Nwanze, IFAD President.

Yemen’s extensive territorial waters and marine resources are the most productive in the world; however, the fishing industry is relatively underdeveloped with most fishers using traditional boats and lacking modern equipment. The fisheries sector is considered to be the third most important in Yemen's economy after oil and agriculture, constituting approximately 3 per cent of the country's GDP, with an estimated 220,000 people dependent upon fishing as their principal source of income.


	Young fishers sitting on nets. Photo ©IFAD/Pirozzi.

The new project will focus on upgrading the fisheries value chain, particularly for poor fishers, and developing aquaculture. It will introduce regulation and effective enforcement to avert overfishing of some valuable species. In addition, the project will help create jobs for young people in the areas covered.

The project will cover all nine governorates along the Yemeni coast, including the Socotra Archipelago. It will be managed by the Economic Opportunities Fund, a public-private partnership recently established in Yemen, and will create sustainable and diversified economic opportunities for poor women and men in the fishing communities. More than 45,000 households consisting of women and young people will benefit directly from the project.

This new project will bring the total of programmes and projects financed by IFAD in Yemen to 21; the overall investment in Yemen amounts to US$223.9 million and has benefited 573,240 households.

IFAD extends a US$19.35 million loan to enhance food security in Azerbaijan


	Savil Allahverdieva, farmer, harvesting cucumbers to support her family in Azerbaijan. Photo ©IFAD/Robert Grossman.

IFAD has announced that a US$19.35 million loan will be provided to Azerbaijan to increase food security and enhance income-raising opportunities. The loan agreement for the Integrated Rural Development Project was signed on 28 June 2011 in Rome by Ismat Abasov, Minister for Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD.

The project is designed to support increased agricultural productivity, enhanced incomes and food security, and to reach more than 50,000 households in the districts of Agdash, Oguz, Sheki and Yevlakh. Households in lowland areas will benefit from improved irrigation water delivery.

IFAD’s project will assist the rural poor in improving their skills and using available natural resources more effectively to improve sustainable productivity and profitability for crop and livestock husbandry. In addition, IFAD aims to raise the incomes of women and men producers through better farm management and access to credit.

The project has several innovative features such as the practice of mixed farming through complementary investments in crop and livestock production and the creation of farmer support teams to promote farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange.

This new project will bring the total of programmes and projects financed by IFAD in Azerbaijan to five, with an overall investment of US$87.0 million.

In brief

Experts at IFAD forum in Istanbul call for new approaches to development

Experts at the IFAD forum held in Istanbul on 11 May 2011 called for new approaches to development that recognize investment in agriculture as the key to food security and economic growth in the least developed countries (LDCs). The event was held on the sidelines of the Fourth United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV). It brought together development experts in a discussion to explore opportunities for rural development in the LDCs. Participants in the forum looked into the new realities, new challenges and opportunities for rural development in the LDCs and agreed that agricultural investments are essential to food security and sustainable development in these countries.

Delivering the keynote remarks, Yukiko Omura, IFAD Vice-President, pointed out that 80 per cent of the population in the LDCs lives in rural areas and these countries are dependent on agriculture for growth, employment and food security. “The development of rural areas is central to eliminating hunger and poverty, mitigating climate change, achieving widespread economic security and social stability, and promoting peace. It is of course central to ensuring long-term food security as well. But the current high level of food prices has added an extra urgency; it is imperative to act now,” she said. She urged that special attention be given to rural women. “Women make a major contribution to agricultural production. Yet the inequalities that persist between women and men in many parts of the world, including in many LDCs, make it difficult for women farmers to reach their full potential.”

IFAD and ICARDA finance Regional Agricultural Information Network

NEN, in collaboration with the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) co‑organized and supported a two-day inception workshop on the Regional Agricultural Information Network project for the West Asia and North Africa Region (WANA‑RAIN) that was held at ICARDA’s headquarters in Aleppo, Syria on 9-10 March 2011.

The main goal of the project is to develop and deploy a fully integrated and sustainable information and knowledge management platform that is capable of supporting agricultural research and development activities in the NEN region.

Session one on the first day was dedicated to setting out objectives, looking at an overview of an ICARDA twinning project and understanding the current state of information and knowledge management. The second session was given over to the sharing of IFAD experiences in existing information knowledge management systems in United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Egypt.

The second day was used to analyse national experiences and discuss future plans and approaches. The workshop wrapped up with the formation of an action plan, the election of a steering committee and the drawing of conclusions and recommendations for future activities.

IFAD and COPEAM work together to help agricultural development projects build capacity in effective communication


	Alessandra Paradisi, Secretary General of COPEAM, with Taysir Al-Ghanem at the grant signing event.

In November 2011, IFAD and COPEAM (the Permanent Conference of Mediterranean Audiovisual Operators) signed an agreement to conduct a training workshop on Regional Capacity‑Building in Effective Communication in Beirut in May 2012.

Information and communication officers working on rural and agricultural development projects, including IFAD‑supported projects, in the Near East, North Africa and Europe region, will benefit from COPEAM multilateral training experiences to enhance communication and networking skills. The participants will learn how to strategically communicate development results, best practices and innovations to key target audiences such as stakeholders, decision‑makers, the scientific community and the Arab media.

The workshop will also contribute to capturing, analysing and sharing information and lessons learned through the use of knowledge‑sharing tools and social media.