Recursos

​IFAD’s mission is to invest in rural people, with the objective of overcoming poverty. Young people have increasingly become a priority target for IFAD as part of the agency’s fight against rural poverty (IFAD, 2014a).

IFAD recently resumed operations in Cuba after more than 20 years. The official launch of the Cooperative Rural Development Project in the Oriental Region (PRODECOR) took place on 30 October 2014.
Given the challenges the agricultural sector faces, IFAD is in a position to serve as one of the country’s strategic partners, contributing to the ongoing modernization process.
Cooperatives in Cuba are key actors in ensuring food security, as they represent 80 per cent of the country’s agricultural production. The Government of Cuba has expressed interest in re-establishing the partnership with IFAD with a view to modernizing agriculture.
This will be achieved mainly through developing non-state smallholder farmer business cooperatives. In this respect, IFAD is well placed to provide technical assistance through its projects to increase the physical, human, social and environmental assets of cooperatives.

In Jordan, the success of a project co-funded by IFAD largely rested on how quickly rural women were able to learn about borrowing money and setting up and running their own small enterprises.

Somalia’s poverty and food security situation remains critical after years of conflict and natural disasters. Since the 1980s, IFAD has supported nine programmes in the country for a total of US$140 million.
There is currently no country strategic opportunities programme for Somalia.

However, the strategic objectives of IFAD interventions in Somalia can be summarized as follows:
• Increase incomes and food security by supporting agriculture and related activities, improving access to water, sanitation and health care, strengthening the natural resource base and building rural financial services;
• Identify and promote pro-poor investment mechanisms in rural areas for dissemination, replication and scaling up; and
• Build the capacity of the diaspora and promote the transformation of people in the diaspora into agents of development through remittances – the portion of their earnings that migrants outside the country send home.

In 2013, IFAD commissioned a study to analyse project management arrangements for market‑oriented smallholder agriculture. As IFAD adapts to the changing development discourse, the organization has focused increasingly on improving Project Management Unit (PMU) arrangements in order to provide more effective and expanded management and technical skills. This review was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of PMUs and their alignment with the Paris Declaration principles, as well as to identify lessons or frameworks to guide future project management and implementation arrangements. It investigated five case studies drawn from different regions and types of projects.  

El FIDA, que hace más de cuatro decenios que lleva a cabo intervenciones relacionadas con los servicios financieros en las zonas rurales en más de 70 países y ya ha invertido USD 1 100 millones en iniciativas de ese tipo, tiene una gran y variada experiencia en esa esfera, una red mundial de asociados que trabajan en las innovaciones más avanzadas y cientos de proveedores distintos que atienden las necesidades financieras de los hogares pobres de las zonas rurales, que son sus clientes. Más de 3 000 millones de personas de las zonas rurales todavía viven con menos de USD 2 al día. Problemas como las crisis económicas, la carestía de alimentos y el cambio climático afectan a las personas pobres de una forma desproporcionada. Los hogares pobres de las zonas rurales suelen quedar excluidos de las posibilidades de operar en el sector financiero forma.

La ventaja comparativa del FIDA reside en su experiencia en el trabajo a nivel de base, su comprensión de los obstáculos que afronta la población pobre en las zonas rurales, en particular los más vulnerables, y su capacidad de concebir enfoques integradores para el desarrollo económico y social. Un elemento fundamental del enfoque de desarrollo del FIDA consiste en la prestación de apoyo a las organizaciones de pequeños agricultores en zonas rurales como estrategia para el empoderamiento de la población rural pobre. Las organizaciones de pequeños agricultores sólidas e integradoras con un nutrido grupo de miembros son importantes asociadas de gobiernos, organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG), donantes y agentes del sector privado que buscan nuevos mercados.

This note highlights the lessons learned in supporting smallholder institutions and organizations.