Savoirs

The goal of the grant was to develop home-based production of charcoal from cooking with firewood into a new livelihood opportunity – and thus create a sustainable value chain for the economic empowerment of poor rural women.

Women from poor rural households in Ethiopia, India and Tanzania were trained to put out fires when they had finished cooking in order to prevent smouldering, and to collect household charcoal through collection clusters, process it into briquettes and market the output through innovative partnership-based enterprises.

Transparent performance reporting is a key requirement for effective resultsbased management of IFAD rural finance interventions. Better reporting, tracking and management have benefits throughout the entire IFAD project cycle, from design to implementation and learning from performance data, and for actors at different levels: partner financial service providers (FSPs); programme coordination units (PCUs); government policymakers; and IFAD decision makers and managers.

The goal of this initiative was to contribute to establishing an inclusive financial system that meets the needs of the rural poor by supporting the growth of healthy microfinance markets and microfinance service providers. Underpinning this goal is the notion that timely and credible information is critical to the functioning of markets.

The programme supported innovation funds working directly with communities to scale up approaches in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Uganda and Viet Nam.

IFAD’s strategy in Nicaragua supports the efforts of farmers’ organizations and the government to increase inclusive growth in the agricultural sector as a vehicle for reducing poverty, generating employment and improving family food consumption, as well as contributing to sustainability and the replication of good practices. The strategic objectives centre on:
• Inclusion. Access is facilitated to assets, markets and income-generating activities, and job opportunities increase.
• Productivity. Labour productivity is increased through incentives that facilitate access to information, technology and technical and financial services.
• Sustainability. Environmental, fiscal and institutional sustainability are improved.

Ethiopia is the second most populated African country with an estimated 96.9 million citizens. Of the total population, 81 per cent are classified as rural. The population is also growing at a rate of around 3 per cent per year. Whilst extreme poverty is declining, it is still widespread and in 2011 was counted at 30 per cent. 

Malawi is a densely populated landlocked country with a population of 17.7 million. Its population growth is about three per cent per year, and it has one of lowest GDPs in the world, with a human development index (HDI) ranking of 174 out of 187 countries. Many Malawians (51 per cent) live below the poverty line of US$1 per day, and this poverty incidence is mainly rural (85 per cent). Endemic poverty has also led to chronic food insecurity and malnutrition for 2.8 million Malawians, combined with HIV/AIDs prevalence of nearly 12 per cent.  

This paper seeks to answer three main questions: (i) What are fragile states and situations and how do they relate to issues of inclusive
structural and rural transformation? (ii) In three selected case studies of diverse fragile situations (in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Haiti and the Republic of the Sudan – drawing on IFAD financed programme and country experience), what have been the key elements of structural and rural transformation and to what extent has rural transformation been inclusive? (iii) In these cases, how does fragility affect the inclusiveness of rural transformation? Which policies and approaches can successfully promote inclusive rural transformation in
fragile situations?

The IFAD Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility (IPAF) is an innovative funding resource that indigenous communities can access to support their own solutions to development challenges. It supports self-driven development by investing in small projects that build on indigenous peoples’ culture, identity, knowledge, natural resources and income-generating activities. The goal of the IPAF programme is to empower indigenous peoples’ communities and their organizations in Asia and the Pacific to foster their self- driven development. 

​IFAD Investments have opportunities for improving food security and nutrition outcomes. In 2016 ESA conducted a mapping exercise on nutrition sensitive interventions to provide insight for an effective nutrition mainstreaming and operations at project level.

Pourquoi est-il essentiel d'établir la cartographie et le profilage des OP? 

Un modèle opérationnel est un outil qui permet à une organisation paysanne (OP) d'organiser ses ressources, ses services et sa collaboration avec ses membres, les diverses parties prenantes (négociants, fournisseurs, secteurs public et privé), ses clients et ses partenaires afin de créer de la valeur et en tirer profit.

​Les petits exploitants agricoles ont recours à différentes stratégies pour améliorer leur présence sur le marché et s'adjuger une plus grande part de la valeur ajoutée dans le secteur de l'agriculture. 

This “Lessons Learned” document of the conservation agriculture (CA) in sub-Saharan Africa toolkit reviews experiences over the last two decades.

Conservation agriculture (CA) in sub-Saharan Africa has multiple, but often very specific, niches for investment that need to be understood to support its inclusion and implementation in projects.

This “How To Do” note offers guidance on the design, implementation and scaling up of a CA programme or project in sub-Saharan Africa. It begins with a summary of the key issues and associated questions  and follows this with lessons gained from experience.

​Smallholder farmers use different strategies to improve their market presence and to capture more value added in the agricultural sector. These strategies include the creation of cooperatives and other farmers’ organizations (FOs).

Le plan d'affaires d'une OP fournit des informations sur la façon dont l'OP entend organiser et mettre en œuvre ses activités pour en assurer la rentabilité et la réussite. Il s'agit d'un outil essentiel pour planifier, gérer et conduire les affaires d'une entreprise. Il permet de préciser les objectifs opérationnels et financiers d'une entreprise et comporte des plans et budgets détaillés indiquant la marche à suivre pour atteindre les objectifs. Il peut également contenir des informations générales sur la façon dont l'organisation procède pour atteindre ces objectifs

IFAD is unique in being both an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency. It is also unique in mandate – the only institution exclusively dedicated to eradicating hunger and poverty in rural areas of developing countries. IFAD provides low-interest loans and grants to developing countries to finance innovative agricultural and rural development programmes and projects, and is among the top multilateral institutions working in agriculture in Africa. The decision to create IFAD was made in 1974, in the wake of the great droughts and famines that struck Africa and Asia in the preceding years. At the 1974 World Food Conference, world leaders agreed that “an international fund … should be established immediately to finance agricultural development projects”.

This paper examines the impact of IFAD-supported projects so as to learn lessons for future projects. It analyses the different methods used by IFAD to measure a project's impact, finds that IFAD is improving the well-being of rural people, and recommends that impact assessments be built into future projects from their inception.

The purpose of this study is to map nutrition-sensitive interventions in IFAD-funded projects in the ESA region, and to provide guidance for effective nutrition mainstreaming operations. 

The specific objectives are to: 

(1) map the various interventions used in delivering nutrition-sensitive activities; 

(2) identify pathways for nutrition outcomes; 

(3) evaluate the scale and scope of intervention implementation; 

(4) assess the effect of the project on beneficiaries; 

(5) identify and map areas of opportunities for scaling up; 

and (6) identify challenges, weaknesses and gaps. 

South-South and triangular cooperation has an enormous potential role in agriculture and rural development in developing countries, both in unlocking diverse experiences and lessons and in providing solutions to pressing development challenges.

From the cases that follow, a number of common lessons emerge. First, it is important to create a space for interaction and cross-country learning. In the Scaling up Micro-Irrigation Systems project or with the household mentoring approach, for instance, workshops and ‘writeshops’ gathered people from diverse countries who could then share their own knowledge and experiences. In such spaces, participants could compare how a similar approach or technology required certain adaptations to better fit with local cultural, social and environmental contexts, offering important lessons for future scaling up.

Sometimes individual champions can make a difference. In Madagascar, the project design for a public/private partnership improved drastically when an IFAD consultant with similar experience in another country became involved. In this case, it was also an ‘unexpected outcome’, as the innovation came from a replacement for the regular consultant, who had broken his foot …. So even through small staff changes, knowledge of a complementary innovation from another country can have a big impact.

​Biodiversity is about more than plants, animals, and micro-organisms and their ecosystems – the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1992) recognizes that it is also very much about people and our need for food security, medicines, fresh air, shelter, and a clean and healthy environment. Biodiversity is also essential for the maintenance of ecosystem-based services, such as the provision of water and food for human, animal and plant life. When we make an effort to conserve biodiversity, we are helping to maintain critical global biological resources to meet our needs today as well as those of future generations. Biodiversity conservation is therefore central to achieving recent global commitments for sustainable development under “Agenda 2030”, adopted by the United Nations in 2015. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) recognizes that losing biodiversity means losing opportunities for coping with future challenges, such as those posed by climate change and food insecurity. 

​This report is aimed at readers who seek to build economic evidence in support of the inclusion of actions on agriculture in climate change plans and programmes, particularly at the national level under the umbrella of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the December 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to restrict a rise in global temperatures and manage risks. Agriculture is a sector especially sensitive to climate change. It also accounts for significant emissions and is, therefore, a priority for both adaptation and mitigation plans and actions at global, national and local levels. 

In Benin, agriculture plays a central role in the national economy, contributing 32 per cent of GDP and employing a large part of the workforce. Despite significant productive potential and a diversified agricultural sector (crop production, livestock, non‑timber forest products, fisheries), the country relies heavily on imports of food products, which represent 25 per cent of the total value of imports.

Since 1979, IFAD has financed 14 rural development projects for a total of US$268.6 million.

Ce rapport met l’accent sur les Opérateurs Postaux Nationaux (OPN) africains en tant que canaux de distribution, parmi de nombreux autres, dans le secteur des transferts d’argent et des services financiers. Il entend fournir au lecteur des informations précises sur le positionnement actuel des bureaux de poste sur le marché africain des transferts d’argent et sur leur rôle dans l’inclusion financière, et exposer ce qui peut être fait pour tirer profit des actifs et des ressources du secteur public afin d’améliorer la compétitivité et de faire progresser l’inclusion financière.

La deuxième Conférence Africaine sur les transferts d’argent et les réseaux postaux a été organisée dans le cadre de l’Initiative relative aux services financiers postaux en Afrique (APFSI), un programme régional conjoint mis en œuvre par le Mécanisme de financement pour l’envoi de fonds (MFEF) du Fonds international pour le développement agricole (FIDA), en collaboration avec la Banque mondiale, l’Union postale universelle (UPU), l’Institut mondial des caisses d’épargne / le Groupement européen des caisses d’épargne (IMCE/GECE) et le Fonds d’équipement des Nations Unies (FENU).

Le développement rural du Gabon dépend pour une large part de la croissance du sous-secteurs agro-sylvo-pastoraux, mais la mise en valeur du potentiel agricole national reste encore embryonnaire. Depuis l’indépendance, les différentes stratégies mises en place par le Gouvernement n’ont pas pu relever ce secteur. Actuellement le secteur agricole emploie environ 40% de la population rural gabonaise, bien qu’il ne contribue qu’à 5% du PIB et ne compte que pour 0,7% du budget de l’état. La disponibilité des terres agricoles qui occupent 20% (5,2 millions d’hectares) de la superficie du pays contraste avec l’activité dans le secteur qui s’exerce sur une portion congrue estimée à moins de 10% des terres arables. La population rurale qui représentait 20% des gabonais en 2000 décroit de façon effrénée au profit des milieux urbains, et ne représente que 13% de la population en 2013.

More than half of the Philippines’ 100 million people live in rural areas and many of them are poor. Agriculture is the primary and often only source of income for poor rural people, most of whom depend on subsistence farming and fishing for their livelihoods. Illiteracy, unemployment and the incidence of poverty are generally higher among indigenous peoples and people living in upland areas.

Que sont les terres arides et pourquoi sont-elles importantes? Présentes sur tous les continents et couvrant plus de 40% de la surface terrestre, les terres arides se rapportent généralement aux zones arides, semi-arides et subhumides.