In Brief

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.