Building Rural Entrepreneurial Capacities Programme: Trust and Opportunity

This programme is broad in scope, aiming to tackle problems of inequality and poverty in rural areas, and to promote equal access to basic services, including rural financial services. Its target group is composed of approximately 50,000 rural households living in extreme poverty across 17 departments in Colombia. Among these are small farmers, indigenous groups, Afro-Latino communities, rural young people, families who have been forcibly displaced and households headed by women.

The overall goal of the programme is to improve living conditions, income and employment in post-conflict rural areas. Specific objectives include:

• Increasing the food security of families and communities living in rural poverty
• Building and improving human and social capital to increase programme participants' access to services
• Strengthening the livelihood strategies of poor rural households to increase their physical and financial assets, and improve their income and employment opportunities
• Designing, implementing and validating appropriate solutions for poor rural young people
• Promoting learning processes, knowledge management, scaled-up innovations and good management practices for territorial entities that invest in rural development.

The project is aligned with policies established under the national development plan and is consistent with the Country Strategic Opportunities Programme approved by the IFAD Executive Board in December 2003 and updated in 2008. Source: IFAD