Rural Areas Development Programme

This initiative represents a change of strategy for IFAD in Argentina, as it is switching from the regional project approach —applied in previous projects in the northwestern, northeastern and Patagonia regions of the country— to a nationwide programme approach. This approach seeks to make a far more effective contribution to the Argentinean government's efforts to sustainably reduce rural poverty, so as to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The programme's key goals are to:

• strengthen producers' groups and organizations, so that are capable of running themselves and engaging in profitable commercial activities;
• promote the transformation of unprofitable traditional productive activities into sustainable and profitable businesses;
• encourage rural youth and women to join in productive activities;
• improve food security among indigenous communities;
• make it easier for beneficiaries and their organizations to access business support services;
• contribute to better inter-agency coordination on poverty reduction policies and increased dialogue between different stakeholders (government agencies, NGOs and private sector).

This project was approved in December 2006 and became effective in December 2009.