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Given the already-high levels of poverty and vulnerability faced by small-scale rural producers, the pandemic has hit them and their families particularly hard. So, what should be the priorities for organisations, like IFAD, in the coming years?  

What does a gender just and equitable food system practically look like? A just and equitable food system is one in which women’s roles change from being invisible to being visible.

To achieve a future where every person has access to affordable and healthy food, where food production protects the environment and biodiversity, and where the people who produce our food are paid decently for their labour, food systems must radically change, and the needs of rural people must be at the centre.

“Beyond the Glacier” – a short documentary which addresses the impact of climate change and human activity on fishing communities in Kazakhstan - has taken a top prize at the Sicilymovie, with Spanish director David Rodríguez Muñiz receiving the first 2021 IFAD COPEAM Film Award today.

If we ignore the challenges and needs of rural people in the world’s poorest countries, our attempts to create more equitable and sustainable food systems are doomed to fail, said the President of IFAD ahead of the UN Food Systems pre-Summit that begins in Rome on Monday.

We begin this month’s episode with an update from IFAD’s Associate Vice-President Donal Brown on IFAD’s preparations for the UN Food Systems Summit. He also gives us the latest on the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on farmers around the world.

IFAD and the People’s Republic of China are launching the Hunan Rural Revitalization Demonstration Project (H2RDP) today to increase profitability of specialized agricultural production and increase economic vitality in targeted rural areas of Hunan province – and to support vulnerable rural households to boost their livelihoods and resilience.

IFAD and the Government of Côte d’Ivoire held a workshop in Abidjan on 15 July 2021 to present the new strategic opportunities programme for Côte d’Ivoire for the period 2020–2025 to all stakeholders involved in agricultural and rural development.

For centuries, people living in Brazil’s semi-arid region have struggled with a lack of water. But over the last decades, thanks to support from IFAD and other development actors, these communities are squeezing a few more drops of water from Mother Nature.

The Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) of IFAD is pleased to announce the third round of National Calls for Proposals (Morocco) 2021: supporting remittances in times of crisis in Africa.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021 reported that more than half of the world’s undernourished are found in Asia (418 million). In Pakistan, Covid-19 has exposed vulnerabilities and inadequacies making nutrition a more complex challenge now.    

With less than a decade left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, the sobering current global trajectory is one in which it will take roughly 170 years to achieve gender equality. The current global pandemic has both made gender inequalities more visible and worsened them, including in food systems.

Rural businesses, which are so vital for transforming our food systems, will get a much needed boost from an ambitious new financing programme launched today by IFAD.

There was a dramatic worsening of world hunger in 2020, the United Nations said today – much of it likely related to the fallout of COVID-19. While the pandemic’s impact has yet to be fully mapped, a multi-agency report estimates that around a tenth of the global population – up to 811 million people – were undernourished last year.

This call for proposals is to select a recipient or consortium of recipients to receive a three-year IFAD grant financing to implement the project: Digital Advisory Services to Support Accelerated Rural Transformation for a total amount of up to US$2 million.

Climate change and ecosystem health will dominate Sicily’s big screen this summer, with today’s announcement of three finalists in the first-ever IFAD COPEAM Film Award at the Sicily Movie Festival del cinema di Agrigento.

IFAD highlighted the value of innovative youth-led intiatives in helping the region’s rural communities overcome the effects of COVID-19 with the second edition of its Rural Youth Innovation Award.

Despite standing to suffer immensely from the decline of biodiversity, agriculture is the lead driver of biodiversity loss, primarily through conversion and fragmentation of habitat and unsustainable intensification.

IFAD will provide funding to assist 6,240 vulnerable small-scale farmers in rural Tanzania impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dorothy Chia Vandefan is nothing if not insightful. She describes herself as a serious-minded agricultural entrepreneur who can create opportunities where there seem to be none – and she’s right.

Gladys Ndagile has been a poultry farmer for many years, but it was only when she connected with a local egg processing business that she finally made a profit from her eggs.

IFAD and the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and ‎Relief Centre (KSrelief) today agreed to join forces to help ensure sustainable access to nutritious food.

IFAD is to hold the Second Edition of the Rural Youth Innovation Award for Latin America and the Caribbean on Thursday, 8 July at the Bogota’s EAN University.

The number and variety of financial services accessible to the rural poor continues to grow. A recently completed stocktake of IFAD’s rural finance programmes has identified a number of successes, plus some opportunities for further innovation.

Despite the African continent holding the world’s most arable land and the agricultural sector employing over half of the population, Africa is still struggling with food production and food insecurity.

IFAD will provide the Republic of Guinea with a grant to improve the resilience of more than 2,123 poor farming households trying to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, by ensuring rapid access to inputs, information, markets and cash.

In the first-ever joint declaration by foreign affairs and development ministers, G20 countries today recognised the vital role Public Development Banks (PDBs) can play in filling the financing gap to sustainably tackle rural hunger and poverty, and the leadership of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in bringing them together to strengthen their long-term investments in food and agriculture.

Renewable energy technologies are an increasingly important part of small-scale agriculture. IFAD’s S-RET project is bringing these technologies to farmers throughout Cambodia – and it’s recently been selected as a GEF Global Good Practice Project.

IFAD and the Government of Maharashtra in India launched the Nav Tejaswini programme this week.

This month’s episode is all about food systems.