Through funding from the European Union along with its own funds, IFAD provides grants to CGIAR research centres, as well as to national and regional institutions in the field of agricultural research for development (AR4D).
The goal of AR4D is to improve the resilience, livelihoods and food security of small-scale farmers, youth and women in rural communities through agricultural scientific research. Therefore, IFAD’s AR4D portfolio supports:
- creation of pro-poor scientific technologies;
- facilitation of knowledge exchange and documentation for AR4D;
- establishment of partnerships between research and non-research development institutions;
- improvement of country-level synergies between agricultural scientific research and food security programmes;
- generation of evidence of effectiveness of new approaches for food and nutrition security and resilience in order to guide policies.
The Putting Research into Use for Nutrition, Sustainable Agriculture and Resilience (PRUNSAR) programme is currently one of the most significant ongoing AR4D programmes. It has a budget of almost US$40 million, mainly from the European Union, of which US$8 million is a contribution from IFAD.