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Tailor-made: farmer-friendly financial services transform lives in northern Bangladesh
Northern Bangladesh is home to some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable rural people. The area, like the rest of the country, is frequently hit by floods and cyclones. Its smallholder farmers are trapped in poverty, largely excluded from borrowing and knowledge of farming practices that could help improve their lives and protect them from potential risks. An IFAD-supported project in the north-west and north-central regions of the country has introduced financial services customized to the specific needs of poor farming communities. As a result, incomes are improving and rural people are beginning to lift themselves out of poverty.
Source: IFAD
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In Argentina, cooperatives show there is strength in numbers
Argentina, a middle-income country, is the third largest producer and second largest exporter of agricultural products in Latin America. But for people living in the country’s remote rural areas there are few opportunities to reap the benefits of this thriving sector. Two IFAD-supported projects in the northeast and northwest regions have worked to help small producers form strong cooperatives to obtain better access to credit and technical assistance and find new markets for their products. With more options at home, fewer young people are migrating to cities in search of work.
Source: IFAD
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Empowering farmers in Tanzania through the warehouse receipt system
When farmers have secure access to credit and reliable storage facilities for their grain, it gives them the option to sell when they can get the best price. This means that in a situation of rising food prices small farmers stand to benefit, not to lose. The warehouse receipt system, introduced through the IFAD-supported Agricultural Marketing Systems Development Programme in Tanzania, is now being mainstreamed by the government throughout the country.
Source: IFAD
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Conserving water, boosting incomes in Jordan’s Yarmouk valley
Jordan is a chronically water-scarce country, and less than five per cent of the land is arable. For farmers, little or no rainfall means severely reduced cultivation and production – and increased hunger and poverty. Those who find other ways to supplement their incomes generally earn very little. To address these challenges, an IFAD-supported project provided farmers with technical and financial assistance to promote soil and water conservation and boost agricultural production. It also helped more than 800 women develop small-scale business enterprises to increase family incomes.
Source: IFAD
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Risks pay off in Colombia microenterprise programme
In 1997, a pilot programme in Colombia to promote rural microcredit was about to close because urban experiences with microcredit were not working in a rural setting. But then IFAD stepped in and encouraged programme staff to innovate and take risks. Ten years later, the programme was considered a model for action and knowledge both nationally and internationally. Its success is a result of an organizational process that succeeded in linking the entire chain, from production to processing to marketing. Phase II is now under way.
Source: IFAD
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Organic and fair trade production revitalize cocoa industry in São Tomé and Príncipe
Only nine years ago, cocoa producers in São Tomé and Príncipe were suffering because of falling global prices for cocoa. Many of them abandoned their cocoa plantations, while others cut down the trees to clear land for maize or other crops. Thanks to IFAD and its partners, nearly 1,200 of them are now growing organic cocoa for the international organic chocolate industry.
Source: IFAD
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Strategic partnerships breathe life and hope into an impoverished community in Brazil
In the semi-arid northeast of Brazil, the IFAD-supported Dom Helder Camara project works with local governments, farmers’ organizations, civil society associations and state companies to improve poor people’s living conditions. Together they have brought safe water to communities, opened new markets for their farm products, trained young people and adults, and helped women obtain identity documents.
Source: IFAD
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Recharging Mount Kenya, the country’s largest water tower
Mount Kenya is a vital source of water for the area’s agriculture, fisheries and livestock production and is strategic to the country’s economic development. But environmental degradation and changes in climate are threatening the mountain that is the country’s ‘largest water tower’. Protecting the environment has become a priority for the government and for local communities. An IFAD-funded project is supporting their efforts to restore vegetation cover, conserve water catchments and sources, and improve farming practices.
Source: IFAD
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From subsistence farming to profit: the benefits of agro-wells in Sri Lanka
Large, well-constructed ‘agro-wells’ are making farming profitable for farmers living in dry areas of Sri Lanka. Farmers in the dry areas of the district of Matale benefited from the Regional Economic Advancement Project (REAP) from 1999 to 2007. REAP was mostly funded by a loan of US$11.7 million from IFAD to the Government of Sri Lanka. The project had a total budget of US$14.5 million, and benefited some 30,000 households. A major activity of REAP’s subcomponent on soil conservation and water management was assistance to the poorest farmers to enable them to construct agro-wells for irrigation purposes. This activity was started in 2001.
Source: IFAD
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Zero-poverty becomes a reality thanks to effective collaboration in Sichuan, China
Any project that reduces poverty rates from 90 per cent to 1 per cent sounds too good to be true. Yet that is exactly what happened through an IFAD-funded project in Sichuan, China. Even more encouraging is that it happened under extremely challenging conditions. The outstanding success is the result of good project management and strong governmental support for poverty reduction.
Source: IFAD
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China biogas project turns waste into energy
Animal manure is a source of methane, the main component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas when released to the atmosphere. But methane can also be captured and used as a source of clean, renewable and affordable energy. An IFAD-supported project in China provided about 30,000 poor households with nearly 23,000 ‘biodigester’ tanks for biogas production. As a result, methane emissions dropped, incomes rose and household sanitation and health improved.
Source: IFAD
 BBC World documentary featuring IFAD-supported project in China
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Turning the tide on poverty for Mozambique’s artisanal fishers
Fighting rural poverty is a multifaceted challenge. It is about increasing the incomes of poor rural people, and providing them with access to safe water, health and education. It is about transferring knowledge and know-how. And equally important, it is about implementing policies that empower people to overcome poverty themselves. An IFAD-funded project is making headway on all these fronts in Mozambique.
Source: IFAD
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Pioneering microcredit for women in remote Pakistan
Microcredit can provide a much-needed boost to people’s earning power in remote parts of Pakistan. But the hurdles can be substantial, given the social and religious customs that curb lending practices. An IFAD-funded project in the Dir district pioneered a new approach to rural financing that conforms to Islamic regulations. In its initial phase, it helped women set up microenterprises. And in just nine years it demonstrated how economic and social empowerment can transform women’s status and self-esteem.
Source: IFAD
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Nepal’s ‘poorest of the poor’ reap the benefits of innovative leasehold project
In the Middle Hills district of Nepal, an IFAD-funded project has helped reverse environmental degradation and bring people out of poverty. As a result of the project’s impressive impact, the government adopted a leasehold forest policy in 2002 and integrated the approach in its poverty strategy. Now a new project is building on the success of the first, introducing livestock and microfinance components.
Source: IFAD
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Restoring peace and improving lives in Mali’s northern regions
Living conditions are precarious in the northern regions of Mali, where social instability and rebellion are a threat to peace. In a difficult environment, the IFAD-funded Zone Lacustre Development Project improved the living conditions of poor people in the northern regions, including many nomadic households, and helped restore peace in the area.
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Women are all winners in Andean competitions
Since 2005, IFAD projects in the Andean region have been holding national and regional competitions that provide recognition and economic support to small-scale businesses run by women’s associations. They also encourage women to share their ideas in public. This way everybody wins: the groups that are awarded prizes, and the other participants, who learn new and better ways to solve problems.
Source: IFAD
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Small-scale farmers become entrepreneurs
Have you ever wondered where the cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes and green beans sitting on supermarket shelves come from? In Mozambique if you shop at Shoprite, Africa's largest food retailer, which has operations in 16 countries, you'll be buying vegetables produced locally by small-scale farmers.
Source: IFAD
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Trading commodities via SMS
Lack of access to reliable and up-to-date market price information is a serious problem for smallholder farmers across Africa. Without this information, they are vulnerable to unscrupulous traders giving them prices at below-market rates. Furthermore, they are reluctant to diversify into different cash crops for fear of not finding a profitable market for their output
Source: IFAD
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Innovative food bank keeps families together by helping them through the ‘hunger season’
In Niger, a combination of recurrent drought and widespread poverty leaves the most vulnerable people unable to cope when environmental shocks occur.
Source: IFAD
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Boosting farmers’ profits through better links to markets
Poor farmers in Tanzania are using mobile phones, e-mail and the Internet to access market information in real time. Market ’spies,’ known locally as shu shu shus, investigate prices and the details of what is selling at local markets, and use their mobile phones to report back to their villages. Soon they might be able to use their phone to access more market information from the Internet. The technology is helping the farmers build better and more collaborative market chains from producer to consumer.
Source: IFAD
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Villagers and aid workers alike benefit from census project in Niger
Poor villagers in the Aguié area of Niger are discovering the many, unexpected benefits of keeping detailed records of their households and assets. As part of a new databank system introduced by IFAD in 2005, local people are developing a detailed census drawn from 27,000 individuals in 22 villages.
Source: IFAD
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Training helps octopus fisher build a better life on Rodrigues island
In the decades since Mauritius gained independence in 1968, it has joined the ranks of the middle-income countries. Severe poverty is rare in comparison to other parts of Africa, but there are pockets of poverty in the northern and eastern parts of the island of Mauritius and on Rodrigues Island, which is substantially poorer. An IFAD-funded programme, started in April 2000, is helping more than 15,000 poor smallholder farmers, artisanal fishers and microentrepreneurs diversify their incomes and improve their way of life.
Source: IFAD
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Tree domestication programme in Africa helps families out of poverty
Planting indigenous fruit and medicinal trees has changed the lives of tens of thousands of poor people in rural Africa. Women are feeding their families, sending their children to school and improving their status at home thanks to a successful IFAD-supported programme.
Source: IFAD
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A cheese-making business flourishes in rural Armenia
A microcredit loan can make all the difference in transforming a failing small business into a flourishing one. A precarious enterprise run by a widowed mother of three in a remote, post-conflict community of Armenia has become a financially viable business, thanks to a microcredit loan provided through an IFAD-supported project. The business has also stimulated the local economy, providing small-scale dairy farmers with added income.
Source: IFAD
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How a poor islander became a local leader
Maryline Legoff is a rural entrepreneur. She is 35 years old and a single mother with a 5-year-old son. Maryline lives on the island of Rodrigues, 640 kilometers off the island of Mauritius. For Maryline and the 38,000 people who live on Rodrigues, fishing is a way of life. But their livelihoods are threatened by declining fish stocks.
Source: IFAD
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Moving down from the mountains: a new life in Pa Vi Commune
Two years ago, in 2005, Giang Thi Hoa, 41, and her husband, Li Mi Na, 54, decided to leave their home in the mountains of Meo Vac district, Viet Nam, in search of a better life for themselves and their four children. In the mountains, the family lived in extreme poverty
Source: IFAD
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How the Kenya Women Finance Trust became a model lender
Sometimes, numbers speak louder than words. Six years ago, the Kenya Women Finance Trust (KWFT) was losing around US$290,000 a year. By 2006, it was posting annual profits of US$1.87 million and changing the lives of more than 100,000 poor women. By any standard, this is a remarkable turnaround. But behind the numbers lies an even more remarkable story.
Source: IFAD
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Voices from the desert: living with desertification
Diramo is 70. She lives in the village of Siminto in Ethiopia where she was born. She grew up as a herder, moving with her family’s animals to find water and food, feeding her children with the milk and meat. But now the abundant grasslands that the cattle fed on are gone and the people are no longer able to migrate in search of pasture. They grow what crops they can but droughts are frequent.
Source: IFAD
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In Ghana, rewards continue long after programme officially closes
Thanks to an IFAD-supported programme in north-east Ghana, women’s groups are still building their small-scale ruminant-breeding businesses, feeding their families and sending their children to school 13 years on. Their success inspired other women in the region to follow suit. The programme also had a number of spin-off successes, including the development of three improved varieties of cassava, the nation’s staple crop, which led to a nationwide programme for roots and tubers.
Source: IFAD
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Irrigation project transforms Madagascar’s Mandraré region
A project supported by IFAD to rehabilitate rice production and develop more efficient farming methods in southern Madagascar has transformed the Mandrare basin from a famine-stricken region into a rice-exporting area.
Source: IFAD
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Financial services and training allow vanilla-growers in Madagascar to invest in the future
North-east Madagascar is known for its production of vanilla and spices, a specialization that eventually led farmers to abandon food crops. From 1997 to 2006, an IFAD-supported project fostered a global approach linking production and marketing. It included activities to develop commercial vanilla production while promoting traditional rice farming. It also implemented a network of credit unions to provide access to financial services for poor farmers who were excluded from the banking system and relied on high-interest loans from other sources.
Source: IFAD
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IFAD's projects in Madagascar give women more opportunities, but the struggle continues
Women in Madagascar, as in other parts of the developing world, are slowly gaining more economic power through step-by-step involvement in new projects. They have proved to be highly responsible managers, sometimes more so than their male counterparts. Yet despite apparent progress they are still under-represented in the local economy and more often than not they are unaware of their possibilities.
Source: IFAD
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Modernizing water systems in the Palestine Territories’ ancient oasis
IFAD launched its first intervention in the Palestinian territories in 1994, soon after the Oslo accords were signed in September 1993. The Gaza Strip and Jericho Relief and Development Programme was designed to improve incomes and living standards and to help create an environment conducive to peace and security. Thanks to the programme, Jericho today has a revitalized the water supply system, which has given a major boost to agricultural production in the area.
Source: IFAD
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The highs and lows of starting small businesses
Romania -- The IFAD-financed Apuseni Development Project helps strengthen the economy of Romania’s rural mountain communities by promoting on- and off-farm enterprises and providing rural development services. The Apuseni revolving credit fund offers investment and working loans to people who qualify for them.
Source: IFAD
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A successful business ensures a future for the community
Republic of Moldova -- Valentina Colesnic lives in the village of Zgurita in the northern part of the Republic of Moldova. She worked as a nurse in the local hospital until the collapse of the Soviet system. In 1989 she turned to farming, encouraging three doctors’ families to rent eight hectares of arable land. Together they cultivated vegetables on the plot, with excellent results, but they were forced to stop when they were no longer able to continue renting the land.
Source: IFAD
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Microcredit saves a small business
Azerbaijan -- Nardane Umuyeva lives in the village of Vandam in the district of Gabala. She is 45 years old and looks after her sick mother and a nephew, who is a student at the university in the capital, Baku. She inherited a small shop from her father. After the republic became independent, her sole source of income was her mother’s pension and a small profit from the shop.
Source: IFAD
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Supporting successful women in agribusiness
Albania -- Marime Korbi lives in Kukes, Albania, and is the owner of the Ervin company, which specializes in the production of high quality organic alcoholic and fruit drinks. Her business emerged intact from the transition from the socialist system, although it was ill prepared to enter a competitive market with its low output and antiquated production technology. Now Ervin is a flourishing producer of fruit juices and high quality raki, a traditional alcoholic drink made from local plums and grapes. It is the only producer of its kind in the north-east of the country.
Source: IFAD
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Forest products in demand
Bosnia and Herzegovina -- As a single mother, Ljubica Rados was struggling to earn enough to support herself and her children. She lives in the municipality of Gornji Vakuf - Uskoplje, an area that is famous for its forest vegetation. With some past experience as a retailer, she decided to use her experience in the trading business to set up her own business collecting and trading forest products. She was taking on a major responsibility, but she soon found people to work with, gained their trust and began to build up her business. In 2000 she registered her company, Flores, which specializes in medicinal herbs and mushrooms for export.
Source: IFAD
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Awakening women's skills and creativity
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Srpska -- Kalinovik is a small town in the Bosnian Serb Republic of Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Once a prosperous Austro-Hungarian military stronghold, it is now a poor rural municipality on the country’s border, with a population of only 2,500. It has little to offer its inhabitants in the way of leisure pursuits. There are no cinemas, beauty salons or theatres. Many people have left in search of better lives elsewhere.
Source: IFAD
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A small business keeps the family together
Moldova -- Gaina Aliona used to work as a teacher in the village school. After the collapse of the Soviet system, her salary was reduced to a tiny fraction of what she had been receiving and she was forced to look elsewhere for work to support her family.
Source: IFAD
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A modern woman in a rural setting
Bosnia and Herzegovina -- Ljuba Radić is a farmer who lives in the village of Pridvorci, near the municipality of Nevesinje in south-east Herzegovina, with her husband and two children. Her life has changed dramatically in the last decade or so. Before the war the family lived in Mostar; she taught in a secondary school while her husband worked as a civil engineer.
Source: IFAD
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