In Brief

The IFAD Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility (IPAF) is an innovative funding resource that indigenous communities can access to support their own solutions to development challenges. It supports self-driven development by investing in small projects that build on indigenous peoples’ culture, identity, knowledge, natural resources and income-generating activities. The goal of the IPAF programme is to empower indigenous peoples’ communities and their organizations in Asia and the Pacific to foster their self- driven development. 

​IFAD Investments have opportunities for improving food security and nutrition outcomes. In 2016 ESA conducted a mapping exercise on nutrition sensitive interventions to provide insight for an effective nutrition mainstreaming and operations at project level.

IFAD is unique in being both an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency. It is also unique in mandate – the only institution exclusively dedicated to eradicating hunger and poverty in rural areas of developing countries. IFAD provides low-interest loans and grants to developing countries to finance innovative agricultural and rural development programmes and projects, and is among the top multilateral institutions working in agriculture in Africa. The decision to create IFAD was made in 1974, in the wake of the great droughts and famines that struck Africa and Asia in the preceding years. At the 1974 World Food Conference, world leaders agreed that “an international fund … should be established immediately to finance agricultural development projects”.

South-South and triangular cooperation has an enormous potential role in agriculture and rural development in developing countries, both in unlocking diverse experiences and lessons and in providing solutions to pressing development challenges.

From the cases that follow, a number of common lessons emerge. First, it is important to create a space for interaction and cross-country learning. In the Scaling up Micro-Irrigation Systems project or with the household mentoring approach, for instance, workshops and ‘writeshops’ gathered people from diverse countries who could then share their own knowledge and experiences. In such spaces, participants could compare how a similar approach or technology required certain adaptations to better fit with local cultural, social and environmental contexts, offering important lessons for future scaling up.

Sometimes individual champions can make a difference. In Madagascar, the project design for a public/private partnership improved drastically when an IFAD consultant with similar experience in another country became involved. In this case, it was also an ‘unexpected outcome’, as the innovation came from a replacement for the regular consultant, who had broken his foot …. So even through small staff changes, knowledge of a complementary innovation from another country can have a big impact.

​Biodiversity is about more than plants, animals, and micro-organisms and their ecosystems – the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1992) recognizes that it is also very much about people and our need for food security, medicines, fresh air, shelter, and a clean and healthy environment. Biodiversity is also essential for the maintenance of ecosystem-based services, such as the provision of water and food for human, animal and plant life. When we make an effort to conserve biodiversity, we are helping to maintain critical global biological resources to meet our needs today as well as those of future generations. Biodiversity conservation is therefore central to achieving recent global commitments for sustainable development under “Agenda 2030”, adopted by the United Nations in 2015. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) recognizes that losing biodiversity means losing opportunities for coping with future challenges, such as those posed by climate change and food insecurity. 

​This report is aimed at readers who seek to build economic evidence in support of the inclusion of actions on agriculture in climate change plans and programmes, particularly at the national level under the umbrella of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the December 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to restrict a rise in global temperatures and manage risks. Agriculture is a sector especially sensitive to climate change. It also accounts for significant emissions and is, therefore, a priority for both adaptation and mitigation plans and actions at global, national and local levels. 

In Benin, agriculture plays a central role in the national economy, contributing 32 per cent of GDP and employing a large part of the workforce. Despite significant productive potential and a diversified agricultural sector (crop production, livestock, non‑timber forest products, fisheries), the country relies heavily on imports of food products, which represent 25 per cent of the total value of imports.

This report focuses on African National Postal Operators (NPOs) as one of the several distribution channels for remittances and financial services.

The Second African Conference on Remittances and Postal Networks was organized in the framework of the African Postal Financial Services Initiative (APFSI), and took place on 15-16 November 2016 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.

Present in each continent and covering over 40 per cent of the earth, drylands generally refer to arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, and are home to more than 2 billion people.

Agriculture is the predominant economic activity in Tonga, contributing around 20 per cent of GDP. About 75 per cent of Tonga’s population lives in rural areas, and agriculture and fishing are the main sources of livelihoods. Fewer than 10 per cent of farmers are commercial producers and most of Tonga’s agriculture is thus still based on traditional/subsistence farming systems. The agriculture sector has been stagnant for a decade, with virtually no growth recorded between 2005 and 2012. Factors contributing to this situation include outmigration of the rural population, an ageing farmer population, declining export opportunities, and the increasing frequency and impact of climate change-related extreme weather events. Tonga’s export vulnerability lies in its reliance on very few commodities, such as squash, the exports of which have been falling since 2003. Rising production costs have contributed to a decline in export competitiveness, as has the difficulty in meeting quality and phytosanitary requirements for the principal markets of New Zealand and Australia.

IFAD has a well-established history of supporting gender equality and women’s empowerment. This commitment spans 25 years, from the 1992 paper, Strategies for the Economic Advancement of Poor Rural Women, to the 2003-2006 Plan of Action for Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in IFAD’s Operations, the 2010 Corporate-level Evaluation of IFAD’s Performance with regard to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment by the Independent Office of Evaluation, and finally the 2012 gender policy.

In the new IFAD Strategic Framework 2016-2025, gender equality is identified as one of the five principles of engagement at the core of IFAD’s identity and values. IFAD complies with the United Nations commitments on gender mainstreaming, including the United Nations System-wide Action Plan (UN-SWAP) on gender equality and the empowerment of women.

At a time when world attention is seized with the crises of migration and forced displacement, conflict, environmental degradation and climate change, FAO and IFAD are keenly aware that development must treat the underlying causes of desperation, inequality, and unsustainable ways of living on the planet.
FAO and IFAD have a shared vision, backed by technical expertise, which looks to the structural, longer-term causes of the scourges the world now aims to eradicate. Together and independently, our practices are geared toward providing sustainable solutions to food insecurity and lasting exits from the poverty trap. Together we are reaching marginalized and forgotten people who have too often been overlooked in development efforts.

Sharing a vision: Partnership between the Netherlands and the International Fund for Agricultural Development A joint goal: Investing in rural people, contributing to global development Rural areas of poor countries are facing both new and continuing challenges. Among these are the world’s burgeoning population, volatile food prices, environmental degradation, climate change, diversion of farmland, declining public financing and inefficient production and trade chains. Food security and rural development, therefore, are among the top priorities of the Dutch development agenda and central to IFAD’s mandate. Over the coming decades, market oriented smallholder agriculture will be crucial to fulfilling the growing demand for food and related goods and services. It will also be fundamental to raising incomes of poor people, 70 per cent of whom live in rural areas, and protecting the environment. A shared desire to
support smallholder farmers in creating this future is at the heart of the partnership between the Netherlands and IFAD.

The importance of the rural sector for sustainable development is well recognized in the debate on the post-2015 agenda, particularly in connection with sustainable agriculture, food security and nutrition, corresponding to the second proposed Sustainable Development Goal (SDG2) drafted by the Open Working Group (OWG) this past summer. Both agriculture and more broadly rural development are, however, important also for many other SDGs related to poverty eradication, reduction of inequalities, inclusive growth, protection of ecosystems, combating of climate change and others.

In September 2015, members of the United Nations will sign up to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These – together with their targets and indicators – will guide global and national efforts to achieve sustainable development for the next 15 years. Governments will then be expected to draw on the SDGs to define national implementation strategies and effective monitoring systems, and to align public expenditures and streamline government institutions to support such strategies.

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will host a high-level meeting (HLM) on 19 September 2016 to agree on a number of global commitments to address large-scale movements of refugees and migrants.

Free-standing development projects cannot, by themselves, eradicate poverty at scale. This realization is very relevant to the debate on the implementation of a universal post-2015 agenda that aims for the eradication of poverty – including rural poverty, which is the specific focus of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

There is broad agreement that partnerships – both global and within countries – will be critical to achieving the post-2015 agenda. They are needed to mobilize new resources – financial and non-financial – and to find synergies among different sources of finance. They are critical to galvanize actions aligned with the new goals and targets, and to ensure that all actors work towards the same objectives. However, identifying and building partnerships that can bring the greatest value added to different parts of the post-2015 agenda is not easy. Moreover, partnerships can also bring risks and challenges.

Since the introduction of a comprehensive set of economic reforms known as Đôi Mói (renovation) in 1986, Viet Nam’s economy has sustained strong economic growth. Over the last 20 years, GDP growth has averaged 7.2 per cent per annum, resulting in rapid poverty reduction. 

IFAD and the Government of Tajikistan have been investing in building the capacities of village organizations and pasture users unions to participate in and influence processes that are important for the livelihoods of their members. The results have been very positive, as the stories contained here show. Local communities have been empowered in managing local natural resources on which they depend. The community-driven development approach is a very effective way to identify priorities (such as roads, irrigation, drinking water, electricity supply, and low-cost storage and marketing facilities) in rural communities, and has been able to provide the needed investments to improve rural livelihoods. Activities also targeted the needs of female beneficiaries, not only producing significant economic benefits but also strengthening the position of women in communities.

The participation of beneficiaries in all phases of the projects was a key ingredient in ensuring that there would be ownership, commitment and long-term impact. Members of village organizations were involved in setting priorities and decision-making from the outset. Linking community development to training and strengthening local project partners helped to ensure sustainability, so that these communities will continue to thrive in the future.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), now known also as Global Goals, give an inspiring vision of what the world could look like in 2030. This is a vision of a world without poverty and hunger, a world of inclusive growth, environmental sustainability and social justice. IFAD’s own vision of inclusive and sustainable rural transformation fits closely with the ambitions of Agenda 2030. Indeed, the Agenda recognizes the importance of IFAD’s mandate and the validity of its approach.

Going forward, IFAD will be expected by its donors and partners to give a clear, demonstrable contribution to realizing the Global Goals. Moreover, the implementation of the goals will bring new opportunities for IFAD to expand the impact of its activities. IFAD’s new Strategic Framework (2016-2025) affirms Agenda 2030 as the basis for its work for the next decade. The purpose of this note is to unpack Agenda 2030 and to show how IFAD will be a part of making its vision a reality

The 2030 Agenda is a global commitment, made at the highest level, to “leave no one behind” in realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Arguably, this is one of the most challenging features of the agenda, and an apt theme for the 2016 session of the High Level Political Forum (HLPF), as the foremost global forum for follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda.

Nowhere is the challenge of leaving no one behind more salient than in rural areas. Since the vast majority of people living in poverty are in rural areas, “leaving no one behind” clearly demands a special focus on rural women and men. Rural-urban gaps exist for virtually all development indicators. The 2016 session of the HLPF is an opportunity to consider how to put poor rural people at the centre of national, regional, and global efforts to implement the agenda and to measure progress. 

Endorsements by the United Nations and international organizations.

It is now beyond a reasonable doubt that the earth’s changing climate is a result of human actions.

The expanding total volume of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere is precipitating higher global surface temperatures and sea level rise.

The effects of human-induced climate change threaten the very existence of numerous species across the planet, including our own.

In recent years, forced displacement has become a global problem of unprecedented scale, driven by conflict, violence, persecution and human rights violations. While the total number of displaced people reached an all-time high of nearly 60 million people in 2015, global attention has focused on the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region, where continued conflict and violence most acutely affect Iraq, Syria, Yemen and neighbouring countries. The total population of concern in the region is estimated at around 22 million people. According to the Stockholm Declaration, “At the root of conflict and fragility lie injustice, human rights violations, inequality, exclusion, poverty, poor management of natural resources and the absence of inclusive political settlements and capable institutions.” Therefore, people in crisis need not only relief and emergency services; people, communities and countries in crisis also need development strategies that solve underlying problems over the long term.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries. IFAD provides low-interest loans and grants to developing countries to finance innovative agricultural and rural development programmes and projects.

IFAD was established in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. World leaders agreed that “an International Fund for Agricultural Development should be established immediately to finance agricultural development projects…”. The conference was organized in the wake of the great droughts and famines that struck many parts of Africa in the early 1970s. IFAD is now among the top multilateral institutions working in agriculture in Africa.

Remittances are the traditional means of financial support to family members back home.  This infographic illustrates the global flow of remittances.

This brochure describes the operations of the African Postal Financial Services Initiative, highlighting the unique position of postal networks for extending access to cashless payments and securing affordable financial services in rural areas.

Higher temperatures, wildlife extinction, rising sea levels, droughts, floods, heat-related diseases and economic losses are among the consequences of climate change. Climate change disproportionally affects the poorest and most marginalized communities living in vulnerable regions, among them indigenous peoples, whose livelihoods depend on natural resources. 

Territorial approaches can enable governments to better address geographical or rural-urban inequalities to more effectively integrate the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development with regard to populations and sectors in a given geographical area.
They can help coordinate and concentrate efforts to address the spatial concentration of poverty and food insecurity in some less developed areas, reflecting vast spatial inequalities.

There are three major poverty divides in Ghana: rural-urban, northsouth, and between women and men. To meet these challenges, IFAD, the African Development Bank and the Government of Ghana are investing in rural northern Ghana to create viable economic opportunities – particularly for women – while improving market linkages with the south and neighbouring countries. The Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP) is spurring agricultural and rural growth and poverty reduction with innovative approaches like District Value Chain Committees (DVCCs). IFAD-supported NRGP worked in partnership, for example, with the Association of Church Based Development (ACDEP), a local NGO in northern Ghana to establish the DVCCs. Today, DVCCs are responsible for the effective planning, implementation, coordination and monitoring of activities in the maize, soya and sorghum value chains. The committees include buyers, input providers (seeds and fertilizers), service providers (extension and tractor services), financial institutions like rural banks, and farmer-based organizations (FBOs). 

When the seasonal rains came to some regions of south-eastern Senegal, the flooding used to cut off the inhabitants from the rest of the country. But that has changed with the IFAD-supported project known as PADAER – Projet d’Appui au Développement Agricole et à l’Entreprenariat Rural. Thanks to the projects’ work on rebuilding roads, rural people have new possibilities to make a living, they can access health services and education, and bring their products to markets.

A new lifeline; a new way of life.

For poor rural people, lack of infrastructure often translates into lack of options and alternatives. The project is changing that.

In 2016, around 200 million migrants worldwide sent home an estimated US$ 445 billion to their families in developing countries. These remittances provide for basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter that are essential to lifting millions of people out of poverty. The truly transformative potential of these funds, however, lies in their investment in education, healthcare and asset building. To meet these needs, the us$36 million multi-donor Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) has been working since 2006 with the goal of increasing the development impact of remittances and enabling poor households to advance on the road to financial independence and rural transformation. The FFR is administered by IFAD, a specialized agency of the United Nations with the mandate to invest in rural people to eradicate poverty in developing countries.

The origins of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) stretch back to the food crisis of the early 1970s, which sparked the World Food Conference of 1974. Three years later, with support from donors, including Japan, IFAD was created as both a specialized agency of the United Nations and an international financial institution. 

Since 1978, IFAD has empowered about 453 million people to grow more food, manage their land and other natural resources more productively, learn new skills, start businesses, build strong organizations and gain a voice in the decisions that affect their lives. 

The objective of development is not to create wealth for its own sake, or the benefit of a few, but rather to build better societies to achieve broad inclusiveness. Preparing the ground for people to succeed – and to survive, if disaster strikes – requires foresight and investment, both public and private.

Brochure that describes the Why, the Who, the Where and the How the the Diaspora Investment in Agriculture (DIA) initiative will seek to foster job growth in local communities, contribute to poverty alleviation and reduce the need to migrate.

Report to the sixth global meeting of the Farmers’ Forum in conjunction with the thirty-ninth session of IFAD’s Governing Council.

This report proceeds from the Global Forum on Remittances and Development held in Milan, Italy in 2015.

This joint evaluation synthesis report (JES) has been prepared by FAO and IFAD Evaluation Offices (OED  and IOE) within the framework of ‘Statement Intent’ of 2 April 2013 for strengthening collaboration across the two  Rome-based agencies.

Policies affect every dimension of the institutional and legal context in which poor rural people pursue their livelihoods; they shape the world they live in and the economic opportunities open to them. Supportive policies can go a long way towards providing the conditions in which people can lift themselves out of poverty. Conversely, policies that do not create opportunities, or that exclusively reflect the interests of other economic players, can be an insuperable barrier or an unbridgeable gulf – roadblocks barring the way out of the poverty trap. Thus, an enabling country-level policy environment for agriculture and rural development is not only critical for effective implementation of IFAD-supported projects, but also a precondition for enabling rural people to overcome poverty. As IFAD shifts its focus from exclusively project-specific goals to making a broader contribution to rural poverty reduction, engaging in country-level policy processes is becoming an increasingly important activity within country programmes, supported by dedicated services and products, and an important mechanism through which to scale up proven approaches and lessons learned at the project level. 

IFAD launched its Junior Professional Officer (JPO) programme in 1980, just three years after IFAD was established, and has maintained a dynamic JPO programme ever since. The JPO programme was originally established by the General Assembly of the United Nations as a way of recruiting young professionals for service in the field of development assistance. The programme is sponsored by Member States interested in investing in young, university-trained nationals of their own country or other countries, for employment in organizations of the United Nations system.

Farmers’ Africa is a capacity-building programme that aims to improve the livelihoods and food security of rural producers in Africa. It works with farmers’ organizations (FOs) to help them evolve into more stable, performing and accountable organizations that effectively represent their members and advise them on farming enterprises.

The programme supports the main functions of FOs, promotes their engagement in policy processes and contributes to their professionalization. It also supports the efforts of FOs to provide economic services to their members. 

The African Postal Financial Services initiative is a joint regional programme launched by IFAD and the European Commission in collaboration with the World Bank, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) – a specialized United Nations agency for the postal sector, the World Savings Banks Institute/European Savings Banks Group (WSBI/ESBG) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).

This uniquely broad-based partnership seeks to enhance competition in the African remittance market by promoting and enabling post offices in Africa to offer remittances and financial services. Post offices are ideally placed to deliver remittances in rural areas, but they often lack the business model, technology and expertise to process real-time payments such as remittances in an efficient and safe manner. The goal of this initiative is to promote, support and scale up key postal networks in Africa in the integration of remittance services.

This paper explores aspects of promoting rural women’s leadership in producers’ organizations (POs). Despite the vast amount of work that women perform in the agriculture sector, their role remains largely unrecognized. The concerns and issues of women farmers are scarcely heard at the local, national and global levels. One reason for this silence is that there are not enough women in leadership positions to be able to represent the interests of rural women.
This shortage is compounded by women’s lack of voice in decision-making processes at all levels − from households to rural organizations − and in policymaking.

Policies affect every dimension of the institutional and legal context in which poor rural people pursue their livelihoods. They shape the world they live in and the economic opportunities open to them. This means that supportive policies can go a long way towards providing the conditions in which people can lift themselves out of poverty. Conversely, policies that do not create opportunities, or that exclusively reflect the interests of other economic players, can be an insuperable barrier or an unbridgeable gulf – roadblocks barring the way out of the poverty trap.

Climate change is the most compelling challenge facing the world today. It affects rural smallholders across the developing world, with effects that pose a grave threat to their own, and to the world’s food security.

The Latin America and the Caribbean region is a different place than it was 25 years ago. Today, every nation except Haiti is categorized as middle income. The region has reduced poverty by half, and the prevalence of hunger has declined by almost two thirds. More than half the adult population has attended secondary school.

Rural areas are changing too. They are no longer narrowly defined by their food production role, and key issues encompass many non-agricultural topics – including non-farm employment opportunities, especially for young people and women; migration and remittances; social protection; and the role of secondary cities. 

​This survey was commissioned by the Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and undertaken by Taylor Nelson Sofres, TNS-RMS, in the context of the African Postal Financial Services Initiative (APFSI). 

Like many development partners, IFAD has found that innovative free- standing development projects alone are not an effective vehicle for eradicating poverty at scale: they must be part of a longer-term process that can sustain learning and scaling up.