Knowledge

The Community-based Integrated Natural Resources Management Project is located in the Lake Tana Watershed within Amhara National Regional State. The project covers 21 Woredas (districts) comprising 347 kebeles. 

Project operations  will consist of two components, namely: (i) Community-Based Integrated Watershed Management; and (ii) Institutional, Legal and Policy Analysis and Reform.

GEF finance was allocated to help land users living around the LUSIP with no land, who may face greater pressure on their access to grazing lands as a result of the project. The LUSIP-GEF incremental project has enabled these land users to convert their farming systems into sustainable, productive smallholder and agro pastoralist enterprises while protecting the wider agroecosystem.

Advances in digital technology and telecommunications are presenting new financial inclusion opportunities for smallholder farmers in rural areas.1 A growing number of payments, savings, credit and insurance products can be delivered digitally to address the financial needs of smallholder households. Smallholders
can especially benefit from mobile phone platforms, which offer immediate, safe access to government subsidies, cash transfers and remittances. The messaging features of mobile phones can complement digital financial services (DFSs) by offering timely information on weather conditions, farming tips, market
prices and potential buyers, which can help increase farming yields and profitability.

Recent advances in technology and increasing penetration of telecommunication systems into rural areas have the potential to make financial services more accessible to smallholder households. Mobile telephony and data networks, coupled with agent networks, can enable the use of digital payments and savings and
provide a platform for credit and insurance, without smallholders having to visit a bank branch. Mobile phones can also bridge information asymmetries by offering weather forecasts and real-time market prices, which can improve the ability of farmers to prepare and respond to inclement weather and price fluctuations.

This paper analyses the role of migration in promoting rural livelihoods and discusses how migration interacts with transformative economic processes. Focusing on migration out of rural areas, it examines the impacts of migration on rural livelihoods and challenges the perspective that sees rural outmigration as a failure of rural development. 

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 paper by Adinda Van Hemelrijck and Irene Guijt explores how impact evaluation can live up to standards broader  than statistical rigour in ways that address challenges of complexity and enable stakeholders to engage  meaningfully. A Participatory Impact Assessment and Learning.

Approach (PIALA) was piloted to assess and debate the impacts on rural poverty of two government programmes  in Vietnam and Ghana funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

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.

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.

 This note helps IFAD design and supervision teams to improve the M&Eindicators of VC projects

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).

This paper is a guide to current debates about agricultural development. It analyses the changes in development approaches and thinking in recent decades and explores today's critical issues in agricultural and rural development policy. With the main focus on Africa, the paper also includes insights from Asia and Latin America.