In Brief

​The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted a critical trade-off between agricultural development and climate change mitigation.

The Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) was launched by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in 2012 to make climate and environmental finance work for smallholder farmers. A multi-year and multi-donor financing window, ASAP provides a new source of cofinancing to scale up and integrate climate change adaptation across IFAD’s approximately US$1billion per year of new investments. The programme is joined up with IFAD’s regular investment processes and benefits from rigorous quality control and supervision systems.

ASAP is driving a major scaling up of successful ‘multiple-benefit’ approaches to smallholder agriculture, which improve production while reducing and diversifying climate-related risks. In doing so, ASAP is blending tried-and tested approaches to rural development with relevant adaptation know-how and technologies. This will increase the capacity of at least 8 million smallholder farmers to expand their livelihood options in an uncertain and rapidly changing environment.

Agriculture and food are critical areas in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – a global action plan aiming to guide the actions of governments, the private sector and a range of other stakeholders over the next fifteen years. The agrifood sector is a key area of investment for food security and nutrition. 

This policy brief argues that the post-2015 development agenda should be designed to encourage governments and other actors to facilitate the economic and social empowerment of the poor rural people, in particular, marginalized rural groups such as women and indigenous peoples. 

The Use of Remittances and Financial Inclusion A report prepared by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Bank Group to the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion.

Proceedings of the 2nd Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples Forum at IFAD, 12-13 February 2015

This report proceeds from the First African Conference on Remittances and Postal Networks held in Cape Town, South Africa 2015.

This Progress Review evaluates the status of IFAD’s Adaptation to Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) at programme mid-term, 2.5 years after the first ASAP-investment has been approved by the IFAD Executive Board.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have joined forces to reduce the vulnerability of poor rural people to extreme weather events that can be devastating to agricultural productivity. With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IFAD and WFP are working to improve the access of poor rural people in developing countries to index-based weather insurance. This type of insurance can help them cope better when extreme weather hits, and can open the door to other financial services, in particular credit.

IFAD uses highly concessional loans in an innovative way in the Republic of Macedonia, the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Moldova. Low-cost refinancing capital makes rural investments attractive and profitable for formal financial institutions and reduces rural poverty by stimulating economic growth.

In the past seven years, IFAD has successfully used refinancing facilities in economies in transition to stimulate investments on farms and in rural processing companies. The facilities have refinanced projects for a total value of over US$50 million in the Republic of Moldova, the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Armenia, with an excellent recovery performance. Refinancing operations have proved to be a viable alternative to established modes of financing rural investments through lines of credit and microfinance. And they have encouraged financial institutions to expand their rural networks and start investing in agro-projects from their own funds. 

Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General

IFAD is unique in the very clear focus of its mandate, and this sharp focus that also gives IFAD great strength, your specialist knowledge of agriculture and rural development will be even more valuable in the years ahead. Speech to IFAD staff, Chief Executives Board for Coordination meeting, May 2014

Marisa Lago, Assistant Secretary for International Markets and Development, United States Department of Treasury

By taking an innovative, community-based approach to investing in smallholder farmers - the most vulnerable members in rural societies – IFAD is an important partner in the global fight against poverty and hunger. I’ve witnessed first-hand the positive impact of IFAD’s work in providing technical training, facilitating access to microfinance, and strengthening farmers’ organizations in countries ranging from Uruguay to Tanzania to Morocco. The United States was a founding member of IFAD and proudly remains a strong supporter.

Agriculture plays a significant role in Africa, accounting for about 30 per cent of GDP south of the Sahara, as well as a significant proportion of export value. Not surprisingly, in most African countries, 60 per cent or more of employees work in agriculture.
Yet this barely scrapes the surface of Africa’s promise. Only 6 per cent of cultivated land is irrigated in Africa, compared with 37 per cent in Asia, for example. Africa also has the largest share of uncultivated land with rain-fed crop potential in the world. In addition, African farmers use substantially less fertilizer per hectare than counterparts in East Asia and the Pacific.

Improving the livelihoods of the rural poor is at the heart of IFAD’s work, and maximizing agriculture’s contribution to improving nutrition is an essential
part of that mission. Of course, other sectors have roles to play, but good nutrition begins with food and agriculture.

Despite strong and sustained economic growth over the past two decades, and a considerable reduction in national poverty rates, poverty in rural LaoPeople’s Democratic Republic (PDR) affects 30 per cent of the population. IFAD’s engagement in Lao PDR is guided by a country strategy that focuses on three primary goals: improved community-based access to, and management of, land and natural resources; improved access to advisory services and inputs for sustainable, adaptive and integrated farming systems; and improved access to markets for selected products.

Mexico is an upper-middle-income country with numerous policy initiatives aimed at addressing poverty and improving the well-being of both rural andurban populations. However, the country suffers from low productivity, low levels of GDP growth, and persistent poverty. Poverty is especially high in rural regions: in 2012, as much as 61 per cent of the rural population was categorized as poor (compared with 45 per cent of the total population) after little change over the past two decades.

Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet republics, and 77 per cent of its population lives in rural areas. Rural livelihoods typically depend on subsistence farming, livestock and remittances, with livestock ownership being a key component in income generation and diversification. In poor and remote agroecological regions the production of angora (which is processed into mohair) and cashgora goats often represents the only source of livelihood, particularly for poorer households. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the sector has been constrained by the absence of goat breeding programmes, the limited harvesting and processing skills of small producers, and the lack of access to high-value markets. These factors have had direct impacts on the incomes of poor rural households, and particularly women, in Tajikistan.

Cooperatives play a significant role in the economies of the five countries of EAC. There are more than 30,000 registered cooperatives in the region and the movement employs – directly or indirectly – more than 15 million people. About half of these cooperatives are related to agriculture. Savings and credit cooperatives are also becoming increasingly popular in the region.

The Integrated Participatory Development and Management of Irrigation Project (IPDMIP) in Eastern and Western Indonesia is a major initiative supporting smallholder irrigated agriculture in that country. The project is expected to start in 2016, supporting smallholder farmers who depend on irrigation in up to 74 target districts in 16 provinces.

On 7 July 2015, IFAD’s Strategy and Knowledge Department convened a roundtable discussion entitled “Leveraging South-South and Triangular Cooperation to Achieve Results”. The event benefited from contributions made by more than 50 participants, including both IFAD stakeholders (management, staff and Member State representatives) and participants representing IFAD grantees, sister institutions and partners, including: the African Development Bank, CIRAD, Embrapa, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Poverty Reduction Center in China, PROCASUR, the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, the World Bank Group and the World Food Programme. The roundtable focused on four areas of discussion: (i) the evolving context – the ‘utility’, demand, supply, risks and opportunities – associated with delivering South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) activities; (ii) incorporating technical assistance exchanges, study tours, learning routes and similar activities into countries’ development strategies; (iii) using grant mechanisms to facilitate the transfer of development solutions through SSTC; (iv) developing knowledge hubs and other models. A number of observations, experiences and good practices were shared over the course of the day, and much of the richness of the discussion has been recorded in the following pages of this report. The most salient messages are presented in the Conclusions section and are summarized briefly below. 

IFAD uses several approaches to deliver a mix of public, private and semi-private goods to poor people living in rural areas. These approaches include: community-driven development (CDD), which targets communities and empowers them to improve their livelihoods; value chain development, which links poor producers to markets through farmers’ organizations; and territorial development, where the focus is a specific geographic territory or area.

This paper offers IFAD’s perspective on some of the key issues on the current debate on financing for development.

This publication is the result of a fruitful and close partnership between the Turkish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MFAL), both at state and provincial levels, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The findings in this report are based on a series of studies and surveys commissioned by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and on analyses undertaken by IFAD on World Bank data. Financial contributions in support of the report were made by members of the IFAD-administered Financing Facility for Remittances, including the European Commission, the Government of Luxembourg, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and the United Nations Capital Development Fund. 

This research seeks to understand how public-private-producer partnerships (PPPPs) in agricultural value chains can be designed and implemented to achieve more sustained increases in income for smallholder farmers and broader rural
development. 

This is a summary of the Ghana Country Report,  based on research carried out in 2014 in association with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) as part of an IFAD-funded programme on the role of PPPs in agriculture.
It is one of the four IFAD project-supported Public-Private-Producer Partnerships analysed for the research report ‘Brokering Development: Enabling Factors for Public-Private-Producer Partnerships in Agricultural Value Chains’.

The report syntheses the four case studies and discuss the findings on how PPPPs in agricultural value chains can be designed and implemented to achieve more sustained increases in income for smallholder farmers and broader rural development.

The aim of this series is to support policy and decision-makers in government, business, donor agencies and farmers’ organisations to build more effective PPPs that bring about positive development outcomes sustainably and at scale.This study focuses on two established PPPs (at Nshili and Mushubi, in Southern province), both facilitated and funded by IFAD

A case study of the Oil Palm PPP in Kalangala, Uganda. The PPP aimed to establish oil palm production (a new cash crop in Uganda) through private sector-led agro-industrial  evelopment on Bugala Island, Lake Victoria. 

The study is mainly based on qualitative data collection through semi-structured key informant interviews and focus group discussions, and a document review. Researchers interviewed representatives of the main partners involved.

For the first time, the three Rome-based agencies of the United Nations have joined forces to raise awareness on the importance of food losses and to stimulate change and action in member countries to reduce them.

With mobile phone coverage generally surpassing 90 per cent of the population, even in developing countries, the potential to leapfrog to mobile banking holds the promise of addressing many of the challenges currently faced by rural remittance recipients. 

When we look at the world today, we see impressive gains as well as daunting challenges. The Millennium Development Goal target of halving extreme poverty rates was met at the global level five years ahead of the 2015 deadline. There are now more than 100 middle-income countries, as diverse as Brazil, Lesotho and Vanuatu. It is estimated that developing countries’ share of the global middle-class population will rise from 55 per cent today to 78 per cent by 2025. 

However, amid rising affluence in some countries and regions, there is also growing inequality. In 2015, there will still be 970 million people living in poverty – the vast majority of them in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. And there remain 842 million chronically undernourished people in the world. Volatile commodity prices bring hunger to the poorest, and instability to markets and societies. Climate change and environmental degradation throw long shadows over all of humanity’s gains. Against this background, we must confront the question of how humankind is going to continue to feed and sustain itself in the future.

This coming year could determine not only whether the world rises to the considerable challenges now facing it—climate change, persistent hunger, increasing inequality, stubborn poverty—but also affecting the fate of generations to come. With a growing population that will exceed 9 billion by 2050, the increasing effects of climate change, a widening gap between rich and poor, and growing competition for resources, the major issues facing humanity cannot wait. Deliberation must give way to deliberate action.

But the global political will to eradicate extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition within a generation, and the conviction that this is achievable, are growing. An ambitious agenda is emerging in the process of identifying post-2015 development goals. It aims to end poverty everywhere in all its forms, and to end hunger and achieve food security. And it plans to do so sustainably. This would perhaps be one of the greatest steps ever taken to secure the future of humanity and the life of the planet.

This policy reinforces IFAD’s position as a leader in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in agricultural and rural development. It builds on IFAD’s experience and achievements in field operations and in the broader policy arena in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. The policy will provide IFAD with strategic guidance in systematizing, intensifying and scaling up its efforts to close gender gaps and improve the economic and social status of rural women in rapidly changing rural environments. 

Land is fundamental to the lives of poor rural people. It is a source of food, shelter, income and social identity.

Secure access to land reduces vulnerability to hunger and poverty. But for many of the world’s poor rural people in developing countries, access is becoming more tenuous than ever. 

The Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility (IPAF)1 finances small projects designed and implemented directly by indigenous peoples’ communities and their organizations. The projects are selected through global calls for proposals, based on a competitive process. In managing the IPAF when it was established in 2007, IFAD realized that the Facility was not only a grant-making mechanism, but it also contained a wealth of knowledge derived from the project proposals themselves. With its limited funding, the IPAF can support only a small number of these proposals. Thus, a knowledge-harvesting mechanism was set up with funding from the Initiative for Mainstreaming Innovation (IMI). 

To address food security problems and soaring prices for basic commodities, in December 2008 the European Union launched a Food Facility totalling €1 billion spread over three years, from 2009 to 2011. Under this initiative, the regional programme IFAD-EU-ECOWAS Food Facility was established with a budget of €20 million. The regional programme covers a number of countries in West Africa.

To assure food security and protect the population from recurrent crises, countries dependent on foreign aid for much of their food supply, such as Benin, Mali, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, have designed strategies and programmes to support food security that are intended to increase food production through the intensification of strategic crops such as rice, cassava, yams and ground nuts, and widespread use of selected seeds and mineral fertilizers.

The Belgian Fund for Food Security (BFFS) was created by the Belgian Parliament in 1983 in response to the more than one million drought- and faminerelated deaths in East Africa. BFFS provides grants to pay for rural development projects, with a focus on food security and nutrition, in some of the poorest countries in Africa, helping extremely poor people to become healthier and more productive and lowering the risk that they will face starvation. 

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized United Nations agency, was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. It is dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries. Through low-interest loans and grants, it develops and finances programmes and projects that enable poor rural people to overcome poverty themselves.

What is the International Year of Family Farming? Small family farms are the key to reducing poverty and improving global food security. The United Nations declared 2014 the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) to recognize the importance of family farming in reducing poverty and improving global food security. The IYFF aims to promote new development policies, particularly at the national but also regional levels, that will help smallholder and family farmers eradicate hunger, reduce rural poverty and continue to play a major role in global food security through small-scale, sustainable agricultural production. 

The IYFF provides a unique opportunity to pave the way towards more inclusive and sustainable approaches to agricultural and rural development that: Recognize the importance of smallholder and family farmers for sustainable development; Place small-scale farming at the centre of national, regional and global agricultural, environmental and social policies; Elevate the role of smallholder farmers as agents for alleviating rural poverty and ensuring food security for all; as stewards who manage and protect natural resources; and as drivers of sustainable development.

This report proceeds from the Global Forum on Remittances held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2013.

IFAD sees smallholder farmers as more than just victims of climate change: they are a vital part of the solution to the ‘wicked’ climate change problem.

South-South and triangular cooperation (SSTC) has become an integral part of IFAD’s support to ESA programmes. The transfer of effective approaches and technologies enables countries of the South to join forces in meeting their aims of reducing rural poverty and ensuring food security. By using experts from other countries in project design, for instance, or setting up learning and sharing opportunities in the region, IFAD has helped foster such exchanges. 

The post-2015 development agenda can be structured to encourage governments and other actors to focus on strengthening the resilience of poor rural people and their livelihoods.

A number of targets that provide the basis to achieve this have already been proposed, particularly focusing on the promotion of more sustainable practices in agriculture.

IFAD POST-2015 POLICY BRIEF

Key sources in the post-2015 debate stress the role of agriculture in food security and nutrition, and suggest possible targets underscoring the role of agriculture with respect to food security and nutrition.

Young people are the future. But all too often in today’s world young women and men are marginalized and excluded – from decent employment and from crucial decisions about how to address the big challenges that face us all. Their voices are rarely heard in democratic debate and their needs and views are rarely reflected in policies and programmes. Yet more than ever the world needs young people’s ideas, their talents and their energy. In rural areas, we particularly need their drive and innovative skills to sustainably produce the food required by an increasingly populous and urbanized world.

Matching grants (MGs) are used increasingly by multilateral and bilateral institutions, including the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Bank, to cofinance productive assets and investments. Although confined initially to investments with clear public good characteristics, their use has spread. They finance a broad array of assets and productivity-enhancing technologies for groups, companies and individuals, benefiting the private sector directly with clear private goods characteristics. MGs are used as a short-term financing instrument to promote diffusion of technologies and enable target groups to carry out productivity-enhancing investments, compensating for the limited availability and high costs of term finance. At times, MGs incorporate a “crowding in” mechanism to attract financiers by sharing the risks and increasing the effective collateral value of the asset being financed. They are also used to support innovations that, by their nature, are more risky and less likely to attract loan finance. Despite their appeal as a relatively simple instrument to address access to finance constraints in the short run, there are several risks, which can limit their effectiveness and impact. When poorly designed and poorly implemented, MGs can distort and crowd out private and public investments. 

This paper outlines IFAD’s strategic approach to enhancing food security and promoting sustainable smallholder agriculture development in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the context of exacerbated impacts of climate change and persistent challenges to market access. A renewed approach will provide an opportunity for increasing results and impacts from agriculture and fisheries, reducing the high transaction costs of project delivery in SIDS, adjusting to an ever-changing development environment and – most of all – avoiding the overlooking of SIDS’ persistent fragility and the risk that they are cut off from development assistance.

In 2005, IFAD and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) formed a partnership to promote a better understanding of the links between rural poverty, livelihoods and water access.

Together they developed an approach to map information relating to poverty, livelihood activities and water availability across sub-Saharan Africa.

By correlating this information, they have been able to substantiate context-specific proposals for water investments.

This publication shows how tailor-made educational programmes (such as the Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools approach) can provide rural youth with the skills and insights needed to engage in farming and adopt environmentally friendly production methods. 

These Guidelines are the result of an extensive process of consultation and a concerted effort that brought together different fisheries and
climate change experts in different moments in time. Substantive inputs were provided by a range of stakeholders, including smallholder
farmers, aquaculturists, academics, personnel from ministries of agriculture and environment, and development cooperation partners.