The poorest of the rural poor are always difficult to target, for both IFAD and governments. Often illiterate and isolated, they have such great needs that reaching them on a significant scale remains a challenge.

The Community Agriculture Infrastructure Improvement Programme (CAIIP) is an US$81.9 million programme, co-financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the African Development Bank. It is implemented in 35 Districts in Central and Eastern Uganda.

Trying to create a profitable agricultural market where smallholder farmers were previously involved in subsistence farming is a very difficult task and sometimes an uphill struggle.

In rural Mozambique many smallholder farmers are prevented from selling their products to the market because of a lack of good access roads in remote rural areas.

Successfully involving youth in agriculture can be a serious challenge, especially when young people living in remote rural areas are disempowered because of lack of assets and limited economic prospects.

Rome, 11 April 2013 – Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), will be in Canada next week to confer

The Northern Mindanao Community Initiatives and Resource Management Project helped develop the abilities of poor rural communities to play an active role in their own economic and social development. One way the project achieved this was by setting up a poverty alleviation fund in selected municipalities.

In The Gambia, women often farm on degraded, unproductive land. The more fertile land is usually reserved for men. But things are changing.

Like thousands of poor farmers living on the slopes of East Mount Kenya, Christine Mugure Munene used to depend on seasonal rains to water her crops. Now she has water whenever she wants.

Small-scale fishing communities in Mozambique struggle to eke out a living in remote areas with depleting resources. An IFAD-supported project has helped build artisanal fishers' capacity to improve their livelihoods while reducing pressure on resources, and to link with higher authorities to ensure that their concerns are voiced at the ministerial level.

In rural households throughout the developing world, women and girls work hard each day to protect their families' basic rights to nutrition, health and well-being. Research shows that they comprise 43 per cent of all smallholder farmers and spend an average of 20 per cent more time than men working on agricultural and domestic chores. Yet they have far less control over the land they cultivate or the income they earn.

In many ways, Niger is a country on the edge. Geographically, its productive farmland is confined to a narrow, semi-arid band across the south. Politically, it remains stable in the wake of peaceful elections held last year, but crises in neighbouring Libya, Mali and northern Nigeria have driven thousands of refugees across its borders. Socially and economically, its human development indicators are low, and it is among the poorest nations in the world.

A statement of intent to build a stronger partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) means improved support for the world's smallholder farmers.

As popular discontent swept across much of the Arab world over the past year, some observers were puzzled. “How is it,” asked the World Bank’s World Development Report 2011, “that countries in the Middle East and North Africa could face explosions of popular grievances despite, in some cases, sustained high growth and improvement in social indicators?”

"When the massacres began in 1993 we were forced to take sides, seeking protection with either the government or the rebels", says Jean-Claude Sindayihebura, who is from Burambi in Bururi province.

When is an equity investment fund more than just a money machine? When it focuses on development rather than quick riches. That's exactly what a unique IFAD project has been doing in Armenia since 2009, with investments in the country's food-processing sector designed to expand markets and improve the economic prospects of smallholder farmers. Known as the Fund for Rural Economic Development in Armenia (FREDA), the initiative combines elements of both development assistance and banking.

IFAD for southern grown development solutions Rome, 19 December 2011 – While the financial crisis still casts a shadow over many countries, the benefits

China's development experience cited as prime example by IFAD Rome, 20 July 2011 – Pressing challenges, such as a changing climate and volatile food prices,

The International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) estimates that approximately 1.5 billion people depend in some way or another on bamboo and rattan.

Mongolia’s punishing climate and short growing season limit the variety in people’s diets and require families to work hard during the brief summer.