Fighting poverty with bamboo

For millions of poor people in East and Southern Africa, bamboo has huge potential to alleviate poverty, protect the environment and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Africa has huge, largely untapped reserves of indigenous bamboo and excellent conditions for growing cultivated species.

With sound management, both natural and cultivated bamboo can be key elements in overcoming core challenges to sustainable rural development.

The project, funded by the European Union and IFAD and implemented by the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation (INBAR), targeted three countries – Ethiopia, Madagascar and Tanzania.

Contributing to higher productivity and incomes, it fully conformed to the strategy of the EU-IFAD agriculture research for development programme (AR4D). It built on valuable lessons learned, provided a framework for a corporate portfolio of agricultural research projects and contributed to projects in other IFAD regional divisions.