Investing in rural people in Guinea-Bissau

The current IFAD country strategy note for Guinea-Bissau is based on the political priorities defined by Terra Ranka, as well as the sectoral priorities and programmes of the National Agricultural Investment Programme (PNIA 2nd Generation, 2017).

The country strategy note guides IFAD’s operations in Guinea-Bissau through the period 2019-2021. It envisages the transformation of the most vulnerable rural areas and the diversification of production systems within sub-watersheds, while also taking into account the organization’s cross-cutting themes – environment, climate change, gender, nutrition and youth – as well as IFAD’s strategy for countries in fragile situations.

IFAD builds on the dynamism of young people and women on the front line in lowland areas, while promoting agroecology to make farming systems more resilient to climate change by combining complementary crops with water and soil conservation. The Fund also uses and nutritional education to help diversify the diets of adults and of children in particular.

Key IFAD actions in Guinea-Bissau include:

• promoting poverty reduction, better food and nutrition security, and improved natural resource management by building stronger rural institutions and enhancing access to rural finance, particularly in the poor and disaster-prone regions of Quinara and Tombali
• supporting the country’s post-conflict recovery and promoting crisis prevention
• making gender equality integral to all project services and activities
• harnessing the experience and capacity of non-governmental organizations and civil society to complement public-sector service provision in target areas.