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IFAD’s Junior Professional Officer Programme
Farmers’ Africa: Complementary actions for the benefit of African producers
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.
African Postal Financial Services Initiative
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.
Methodological Reflections following the second PIALA Pilot in Ghana
IFAD has to report to its Members States on the total number of rural people lifted out of poverty1. The government programmes it funds, however, are implemented in complex ways and environments that challenge mainstream evaluation practice. The challenge for IFAD and its co- implementing and co-funding partners, moreover, is not just to rigorously assess impact but also to understand the processes generating impact in order to realize its ambitious targets (IFAD, 2011). Albeit a strong emphasis on quantitative measurement, there is a need for impact evaluation that fosters learning and responsibility.
How to monitor progress in value chain projects
How to do note: Livestock value chain analysis and project development
The step-by-step approach to VC analysis and project design follows the basic IFAD project design cycle.Each step is briefly described and followed by guiding questions for the project design team. The VC approach should be adopted early in the project cycle, such as when developing project concept notes for a country strategic opportunities programme (COSOP).
Research Series Issue 1 - Agricultural and rural development reconsidered
Scaling up note: Ghana
Note sur la transposition à plus grande échelle: Nigéria
Scaling up note: Egypt
Scaling up note: Ethiopia
Scaling up note: Peru
Scaling up note: Sudan
Scaling up note: Bangladesh
Scaling up note: China
GEF Sao Tome & Principe facsheet
Promoting the leadership of women in producers' organizations - Lessons from the experiences of FAO and IFAD
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.
GEF Ghana facsheet
because of the difficult access to markets.
The Policy Advantage: Enabling smallholders’ adaptation priorities to be realized
Scaling up note: Mauritania
Scaling up note: Indonesia
Changing lives through IFAD water investments: a gender perspective
Executive summary, final report on the participatory impact evaluation of the Root & Tuber Improvement & Marketing Programme in Ghana
Climate change and food security - Innovations for smallholder agriculture
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.
A new generation of rural transformation: IFAD in Latin America and the Caribbean
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.
Toolkit: Integrated homestead food production
Since its founding, IFAD has focused on enabling smallholder farmers to increase agricultural production and productivity as a means for reducing poverty.
However, experience shows that increased productivity and incomes do not automatically translate into improved nutritional status of poor rural people, especially women, young people and children.
Strengthening Country-Level Agricultural Advisory Services in the target countries of Burkina Faso, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Uganda
Enabling rural transformation and grassroots institutional building for sustainable land management and increased incomes and food security
Investing in rural people in El Salvador
IFAD has acquired considerable experience during its three decades of partnership with the country. It has contributed directly and indirectly to the mobilization of resources aimed at removing structural obstacles to the development of rural poor people. This has been achieved through the active involvement of, and coordination with, family farmers, indigenous peoples, rural youth organizations, government, international cooperation agencies, civil society and, more recently, the private sector.
IFAD-funded projects mainly support family farmers and entrepreneurs in municipalities in which poverty is prevalent. Activities have also helped to address needs arising after the end of the 12-year internal armed conflict and the 2001 post-earthquake reconstruction process.
Development of innovative site-specific integrated animal health packages
Livestock contribute to the livelihoods of roughly 70 per cent of the world’s poor, supporting farmers, consumers, traders and laborers throughout the developing world. The increasing demand for livestock products for the growing populations of developing countries, particularly in Africa, offers new market opportunities for poor farmers in rural areas.
Success in raising small-farmer productivity leads to improvements in household food security, nutrition and income, leading to poverty reduction. However, in vast areas of sub-Saharan Africa, increased and sustained animal production by small farmers is greatly hampered by livestock diseases. Animal diseases severely constrain livestock enterprises of smallholder livestock keepers in sub-Saharan Africa but are not given the attention they deserve by the global community
Jordan - Irrigation Technology Pilot Project to Face Climate Change
ASAP Sudan factsheet
Lessons learned: Integrated homestead food production (IHFP)
How to do note: Integrated homestead food production (IHFP)
Transforming rural areas
is produced on small farms that are usually family-run. Yet it’s also true that 70 per cent of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas, where the lack
of opportunity is forcing many young rural people to leave their homes in search of work in overcrowded cities or abroad.
How to do note: Fisheries, Aquaculture and Climate Change
Baseline survey on the use of rural post offices for remittances in Africa
Scaling up results: overview
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.
The Mitigation Advantage: Maximizing the co-benefits of investing in smallholder adaptation initiatives
Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) brochure
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.
Finance for Food: Investing in Agriculture for a Sustainable Future
IFAD Policy brief 2: An empowerment agenda for rural livelihoods
The use of remittances and financial inclusion
Zipping up the Evidence - Dealing with non-counterfactuals in Viet Nam and Ghana
Participatory Impact Assessment and Learning Approach (PIALA)
Proceedings of the 2nd Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples Forum at IFAD, 12-13 February 2015
Case study: Family life model, Uganda
An Innovative, Scalable, Pro-poor Home Cooking-based Charcoal Production Value Chain For Women
How to do note: Household Methodologies
How to do note: Climate change risk assessments in value chain projects
Ecuador - Sustainable Management of Biodiversity and Water Resources in the Ibarra-San Lorenzo Corridor
GEF Senegal factsheet
main components: i) capacity building, awareness raising and knowledge
management at the national level, ii) water harvesting and watershed
management, and iii) water conservation and efficient irrigation.
Climate Change Adaptation Project in the Areas of Watershed Management and Water Retention
main components: i) capacity building, awareness raising and knowledge
management at the national level, ii) water harvesting and watershed
management, and iii) water conservation and efficient irrigation.
ASAP Burundi factsheet
ASAP Uganda factsheet
PRELNOR will enable smallholder farmers to improve their productivity to a level where there is enough surplus production that the farmer can sell at market.
GEF Mexico factsheet
project area and develop local capabilities, leading to the reduction of carbon
emissions from deforestation and the increase of carbon sequestration
through the financing of initiatives for the most vulnerable. Project operations
are focused in 25 municipalities, in which 83 per cent of the population are
indigenous peoples.
How To Do Note: Measuring Climate Resilience
African Conference on Remittances and Postal Networks – official report
Investing in rural people in Colombia
Public-private-producer partnerships (4Ps) in small ruminant value chain development in India
ODI ASAP Progress Review
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.
Creating pathways out of poverty in rural areas: Managing weather risk with index insurance
Refinancing facilities: IFAD introduces an innovation in rural finance development
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.
What others say about IFAD
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.
Addressing climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean
Addressing climate change in Asia and the Pacific
Addressing climate change in Near East, North Africa and Europe
Fulfilling the promise of African 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 nutrition through agriculture
part of that mission. Of course, other sectors have roles to play, but good nutrition begins with food and agriculture.
World Water Week 2015 - Water for Agricultural Development
Water lies at the heart of sustainable development and is essential for economic growth, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. It is the basis of human and environmental health, energy security, sustainable urbanization and the ability of rural women and men in developing countries to pursue productive activities.
But one billion people still lack access to safe water and even more lack access to basic sanitation. Around three quarters of the world’s poorest and hungriest people live in rural areas, often forgotten and bypassed by economic growth and development programmes. The majority of rural people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, but face numerous barriers in accessing services and securing vital resources, including water.
Policy case study Lao People’s Democratic Republic - Exchange on good practices for public policy consultations
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.
Policy case study Mexico - Supporting design of a national programme as a policy solution for reducing rural poverty
Policy case study Tajikistan - Exchange on good practices for public policy consultations
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.
Policy case study East African Community - Supporting public hearings on the East African Community Cooperative Societies Bill
ASAP Egypt factsheet
The community development activities will focus on the ''new lands'' that have been settled by smallholder farmers. Community development associations will be strengthened so that they can allow for the inclusion of women and youth. The project will also provide buildings and financing for schools, health clinics, community centres and clean water infrastructure.
ASAP Kenya factsheet
ASAP Niger factsheet
Indonesia: Policy study to add value to the project design process
Introducing solar-powered pumping in the oases of Mauritania
ASAP Morocco factsheet
Leveraging South-South and Triangular Cooperation to achieve results - Proceedings of the IFAD Roundtable Discussion
Delivering public, private and semi-private goods: Institutional issues and implementation arrangements
Annual report on investigative and anticorruption activities 2014
In line with its mandate, the Office of Audit and Oversight (AUO) and its Investigation Section (IS) played a critical role in upholding IFAD’s zero-tolerance stance towards corruption, fraud and misconduct in 2014. It also supported effectively IFAD’s risk management efforts by focusing on areas of increased relevance to the Fund’s evolving operational and financial model and by ensuring a timely and effective response to alleged wrongdoing.
Getting to work: financing a new agenda for rural transformation
Brokering Development - Summary of Indonesia Case Study
and Agricultural Development (READ), implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture. The PPP was developed as a partnership between the Ministry of Agriculture (represented by READ) and a private sector partner, Mars.
The Republic of Turkey and IFAD - Partnership for smallholder investments and opportunities
Sending Money Home: European flows and markets
Brokering development - Enabling factors for public-private-producer partnerships in agricultural value chains
development.
Brokering Development-Summary of Ghana Case Studies
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.
Brokering Development - Summary of Rwanda Case Study
Brokering Development - Summary of Uganda Case Study
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.
Project to Support Food Security in the Region of Maradi (PASADEM)
around 5 centers of economic development (Tessaoua, Tchadoua, Sabon Machi,
Guidan Roumdji and Djirataoua) in 18 communes in the Maradi region.
GEF Niger factsheet
Participatory Coastal Zone Restoration and Sustainable Management in the Eastern Province of Post-Tsunami Sri Lanka
Enhancing Resilience of Agriculture Sector in Georgia (ERASIG)
The state of food insecurity in the world 2015
was the formulation of the First Millennium Development Goal (MDG 1), established in 2000 by the United Nations members, which includes among its targets “cutting by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015”.
In this report, we review progress made since 1990 for every country and region as well as for the world as a whole. First, the good news: overall, the commitment to halve the percentage of hungry people, that is, to reach the MDG 1c target, has been almost met at the global level. More importantly, 72 of the 129 countries monitored for progress have reached the MDG target, 29 of which have also reached the more ambitious WFS goal by at least halving the number of
undernourished people in their populations.
Mainstreaming Food Loss Reduction Initiatives for Smallholders in Food-Deficit Areas
Achieving zero hunger
How to do note: Mainstreaming portable biogas systems into IFAD-supported projects
IFAD Annual Report 2014
Learn about IFAD's work and results in the 2014 Annual Report. This includes stories about the rural people we invest in, and covers our advocacy to keep the needs of rural communities at the top of the international development agenda. The Report also provides the facts and figures we regularly share with our Member States and partners.
Toolkit: Youth Access to Rural Finance
The Lessons Learned and How To Do Note on this topic provide IFAD country programme managers, project design teams and implementing partners with insights and key guidance on designing and offering appropriate financial services for rural youth. The toolkit on Youth Access to Rural Finance synthesizes best practices and offers examples from around the world.