The programme, referred to as the Strengthening Rural Institutions (SRI) project, was implemented by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Eastern and Southern Africa Region from 2011 to 2014. The project aimed to bring about a sustainable rural transformation process by strengthening the “institutional infrastructure” for integrated natural resource management, food security and poverty alleviation in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The project’s main goal was to support grassroots organizations to meaningfully participate in governance processes where their livelihoods and well-being, and the environment, are at stake, with an emphasis on enabling poor rural households to aggregate, mobilize and access rural services.

The goal of this programme was to develop spate irrigation policies and programmes, based on action research and documented practical experiences, that contribute to rural poverty alleviation and accelerated economic growth in marginal areas in Ethiopia, Pakistan, Sudan and Yemen. Specific objectives: 1. Strengthen networks in the four countries. 2. Prepare country policy notes. 3. Implement two innovative action research activities per country that can be scaled up. 4. Further develop knowledge, including in local languages, and open-source knowledge-sharing. 5. Train four international MSc students. 6. Incorporate spate irrigation into programmes of universities and agricultural colleges in the four target countries. 7. Create a global inventory of spate irrigation and flood-based farming systems. 8. Provide technical backstopping to IFAD projects and country programmes.

The goal of this grant was to provide best business case options to producers and consumers to recover nutrients, water and energy from agricultural and domestic wastes for food security and food safety. The project sought to identify innovative market-driven and scalable approaches to enhance the sustainability of agricultural production considering environmental and health requirements of immediate users and end-consumers. The development challenges were to: 1. identify and share pathways with relevant stakeholders to make business cases more replicable, scalable and sustainable; 2. strengthen national, regional and local stakeholder platforms (from agricultural and/or sanitation sectors) by extending their interest in knowledge of safe reuse as a business; 3. formulate initiatives from donors, government departments and/or the private sector in order to incorporate project results.

The programme’s goals were to increase the food security of smallholder farm households in southern Africa and enhance their livelihoods while conserving and improving the natural resources used for agriculture. The focus of the programme was on developing productive farming systems for smallholder farmers who managed maize-based systems, based on the principles of conservation agriculture (CA): increasing the profitability, sustainability and labour efficiency of agricultural production.

Historically, pastoralists have been marginalized, and policies have been geared towards encouraging, and in some instances forcing, their settlement and sedentarization. Misunderstanding of their livelihoods has also led to abandonment of their customary institutions and practices. However, scientific evidence shows that mobile pastoralism is the most sustainable way of using marginal lands (such as arid, cold and mountain areas). The project goal was “to develop sustainable land management and resilient livelihoods in rangeland environments”. The objective of the project was to develop knowledge and build capacity for pastoral advocacy, create opportunity for pastoral advocacy and engage directly in policy dialogue, in order to promote policies and investments for sustainable management of rangeland environments and pastoral livelihoods. A significant aspect of the project was strengthening networking and building a global movement on sustainable pastoralism; this relied on the credibility and recognition of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a science-based intergovernmental organization.

This programme set out to empower 35,000 vulnerable women and men in rural value chains directly and another 65,000 indirectly through direct and peer capacity-building and action learning to negotiate a better position in value chains and achieve sustainable and equitable “win-win” collaboration between value chain stakeholders. The programme aimed to adapt and integrate participatory action learning methodologies into the policies and practices of at least 10 civil society organizations (CSOs) and to disseminate them through e-forums and capacity- building events then to be taken up by other relevant IFAD and Oxfam projects, in countries such as Ghana, India and Sierra Leone. Knowledge institutes also contributed to participatory planning and gender mainstreaming in value chain research and training.

IFAD’s support to the Nigerian Government’s poverty reduction programme in rural areas targets large numbers of smallholder farmers and is essentially people-centred. IFAD supports programmes and projects that work with communities, and with smallholder farmers as the key players.

During the period covered by the project, the landscape of global microfinance was deeply modified and “the game has changed”. On the one hand, the saturation of the market has led to over-indebtedness of very poor clients, scandals and systemic crises that have swept the whole sector in some prominent countries. On the other hand, it has been difficult for the industry to demonstrate tangible impact and, therefore, show that it has delivered against its promises of lifting hundreds of millions of very poor people out of poverty. In this challenging context, the project aimed to help unlock the economic potential in sub-Saharan Africa, by promoting the growth of existing financial intermediaries that serve rural areas (rural financial institutions, RFIs) so that local entrepreneurs could take advantage of new opportunities to be more productive and more competitive, and improve their living conditions sustainably.

The goal of the grant was to develop home-based production of charcoal from cooking with firewood into a new livelihood opportunity – and thus create a sustainable value chain for the economic empowerment of poor rural women. Women from poor rural households in Ethiopia, India and Tanzania were trained to put out fires when they had finished cooking in order to prevent smouldering, and to collect household charcoal through collection clusters, process it into briquettes and market the output through innovative partnership-based enterprises.

Transparent performance reporting is a key requirement for effective resultsbased management of IFAD rural finance interventions. Better reporting, tracking and management have benefits throughout the entire IFAD project cycle, from design to implementation and learning from performance data, and for actors at different levels: partner financial service providers (FSPs); programme coordination units (PCUs); government policymakers; and IFAD decision makers and managers. The goal of this initiative was to contribute to establishing an inclusive financial system that meets the needs of the rural poor by supporting the growth of healthy microfinance markets and microfinance service providers. Underpinning this goal is the notion that timely and credible information is critical to the functioning of markets.

The programme supported innovation funds working directly with communities to scale up approaches in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Uganda and Viet Nam.

IFAD’s strategy in Nicaragua supports the efforts of farmers’ organizations and the government to increase inclusive growth in the agricultural sector as a vehicle for reducing poverty, generating employment and improving family food consumption, as well as contributing to sustainability and the replication of good practices. The strategic objectives centre on: • Inclusion. Access is facilitated to assets, markets and income-generating activities, and job opportunities increase. • Productivity. Labour productivity is increased through incentives that facilitate access to information, technology and technical and financial services. • Sustainability. Environmental, fiscal and institutional sustainability are improved.

Ethiopia is the second most populated African country with an estimated 96.9 million citizens. Of the total population, 81 per cent are classified as rural. The population is also growing at a rate of around 3 per cent per year. Whilst extreme poverty is declining, it is still widespread and in 2011 was counted at 30 per cent.

Malawi is a densely populated landlocked country with a population of 17.7 million. Its population growth is about three per cent per year, and it has one of lowest GDPs in the world, with a human development index (HDI) ranking of 174 out of 187 countries. Many Malawians (51 per cent) live below the poverty line of US$1 per day, and this poverty incidence is mainly rural (85 per cent). Endemic poverty has also led to chronic food insecurity and malnutrition for 2.8 million Malawians, combined with HIV/AIDs prevalence of nearly 12 per cent.

The purpose of this study is to map nutrition-sensitive interventions in IFAD-funded projects in the ESA region, and to provide guidance for effective nutrition mainstreaming operations. The specific objectives are to: (1) map the various interventions used in delivering nutrition-sensitive activities; (2) identify pathways for nutrition outcomes; (3) evaluate the scale and scope of intervention implementation; (4) assess the effect of the project on beneficiaries; (5) identify and map areas of opportunities for scaling up; and (6) identify challenges, weaknesses and gaps.

Since 1979, IFAD has financed 14 rural development projects for a total of US$268.6 million.

More than half of the Philippines’ 100 million people live in rural areas and many of them are poor. Agriculture is the primary and often only source of income for poor rural people, most of whom depend on subsistence farming and fishing for their livelihoods. Illiteracy, unemployment and the incidence of poverty are generally higher among indigenous peoples and people living in upland areas.

Declining soil fertility, escalating costs of farm inputs and lack of capacity are persistent problems that farmers in eastern Africa continue to grapple with. Such factors have resulted in high levels of poverty and food insecurity due to poor performance of the agriculture sector. Climate change adds a big blow to the already bad scenario with serious ramifications on the smallholder-farming subsector. The region is predicted to experience warmer temperatures and decreased rainfall from June to August by 2050. This being an important season for food production in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia, adaptation measures are necessary for sustainable food production. Evergreen Agriculture refers to the practice of incorporating selected trees and/or shrub species into annual cropping fields. It can be practiced under conventional farming practices but ideally seeks to combine agroforestry with the principles of conservation farming. Evergreen agriculture practices are now part of the solution to tackle climate change and the adoption is on a rising trend in several countries in the region. Conservation Agriculture, including agroforestry, specialty crops, and permanent cropping systems, promotes food sufficiency, poverty reduction, and value added production through improved crop and animal production and production in relation to market opportunities.

Developing smallholder pig value chains in Uganda to increase rural incomes and adapt to climate change.

Bananas (Musa spp.), including dessert banana, plantain and cooking banana are the eighth most important food crop in the world, and the fourth most important in least developed countries (FAOSTAT, 2013). They are produced in 135 countries and territories across the tropics and subtropics. The vast majority of producers are smallholder farmers who grow the crop for either home consumption or local markets. Less than 15 per cent of the global production of more than 130 million metric tons is exported. Today, the international banana trade, totaling around 17 million metric tons, is worth over US$7 billion per year (FAOSTAT).