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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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Mount Kenya – recharging Kenya's largest water tower by protecting the environment
Environmental degradation and changes in climate in the Mount Kenya area are threatening the mountain that is the country's largest water tower. Mount Kenya provides close to half the flow of the Tana River, which produces 50 per cent of the hydropower generated in Kenya. Mount Kenya is a source of water for irrigated agriculture, fisheries, livestock production and biodiversity conservation and is strategic to the country's economic development. Restoring vegetation cover and protecting water catchments and sources have become a priority for communities and the government. An IFAD-funded project, the Mount Kenya East Pilot Project for Natural Resource Management, is also responding to the challenge.
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.
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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Biogas: helping poor farmers help the planet and themselves
Animals are an important source of food and income for many poor rural people, but their manure is a source of one of the world’s most potent greenhouse gases. One sow and her piglets will produce about 9 tonnes of carbon-dioxide through the methane generated by their droppings. Turning manure into biogas is a triple-win situation: it improves the lives of poor rural people by giving them an affordable source of energy for cooking and lighting, replaces the time spent for fuelwood collection with money-making activities, and reduces the release of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Source: IFAD
 BBC World documentary featuring IFAD-supported project in China
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Tides of change: a project makes a difference in the livelihoods of artisanal fishers
Fighting rural poverty is a multifaceted challenge. It is not only about increasing the incomes of poor rural people, and providing them with access to safe water, health and education. It is also about transferring knowledge and know-how. And more importantly, it is about implementing policies that empower people and lead to reducing rural poverty. This is what the IFAD-funded Sofala Bank Artisanal Fisheries Project is doing in Mozambique.
Source: IFAD
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Pioneering microcredit for women in remote Pakistan
An IFAD-funded project in the Dir district has pioneered a new approach to rural financing that conforms to Islamic regulations. In its initial phase it has helped women set up micro-enterprises. In just nine years it has 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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Mali: Investing in the northern regions to support the peace process and improve poor people’s living conditions
Living conditions are precarious in the northern regions of Mali, where social instability and rebellion are a threat to peace. The Government of Mali has designated IFAD as the leading donor in the area. In a difficult environment, the IFAD-funded Zone Lacustre Development Project has made sound progress in the struggle to ensure food security and improve the living conditions of the poor people of the northern regions, including many nomadic households. IFAD’s investments are contributing to restoring peace in the area.
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Competitions show women that they are all winners
Since 2005, national competitions designed for women entrepreneurs in the Andean region are building their self-esteem and self-reliance and giving them the courage to attain their dreams. This year women from Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will compete for prizes. More importantly, they will learn from one another.
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 farmer’s profits through better links to markets
Poor farmers in Tanzania are using modern information and communication technologies like mobile phones and even the Internet to get access to market information, and to learn how to build better and more collaborative market chains from producer to consumer. Market “spies”, known locally as shu shu shus, investigate prices and other aspects of local markets, then use their mobile phones to report the information back to their villages. Soon they might be using SMS to access Internet-based databases of locally-relevant market information.
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
Lima Casimir is a 52 year old and a "piqueuse ourite" - an octopus fisher - who lives on the island of Rodrigues 640 kilometres off the island of Mauritius.
Lima's day starts at 5.30 am when she takes her son's boat to go to her breath-taking 'office' - a vast lagoon that opens onto the Indian Ocean. Her office furniture includes a boat and the magnificent coral reefs. To catch the octopus, she uses an iron rod which she wears around her shoulder. The IFAD-funded Rural Diversification Programme trained Lima in how to catch octopus without damaging the coral reefs.
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 flourishing cheese-making business in remote 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 rural community of Armenia has become a financially viable business, thanks to a microcredit loan provided through an IFAD-supported project. The success of Aida Ghasryan's business is now an inspiration to other women in the region, who are struggling to make a living and support their families.
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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Women in Kanshegu village gain economic independence by raising goats
Alimatou Mahama, 40, lives in Kanshegu, a small village in the district of Savelugu/Nanton in the northern region of Ghana, with her husband and nine children. In 1994, Alimatou helped to create the Kanshegu women’s group with nine other women in the village to explore ways to improve their livelihoods and lift themselves out of extreme poverty.
Source: IFAD
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IFAD's rice irrigation project transforms Mandrare region of Madagascar
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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IFAD project sets up innovative vanilla growing scheme in Madagascar
Madagascar is the world’s leading vanilla exporter, accounting for half of global production, but it remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Most vanilla production is concentrated in the fertile area of Sava, in the north-east, where about 70 per cent of the population depends on the lucrative spice. The region is relatively wealthy compared to the rest of the island, but there are wide disparities between small-scale growers and larger estates that collect and process vanilla and sell it on the international market.
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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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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