Knowledge

IFAD works for and with the poorest people in Viet Nam, including ethnic minorities, small-scale farmers and households headed by women. Strategies to reduce poverty and improve living conditions include building partnerships, strengthening institutional capacity and promoting participation. IFAD works with the government and other partners to empower poor rural people so they can have a role in decisionmaking.

To do this, IFAD finances programmes and projects that focus on developing and testing innovative approaches to poverty reduction that can be replicated and scaled up by the government and other agencies. Interventions are area-based and multisectoral. They target regions where poverty reduction is a priority.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has for many years stressed innovation, knowledge and scaling up as essential ingredients
of its strategy to combat rural poverty in developing countries. This institutional review of IFAD’s approach to scaling up is the fi rst of its kind: A team
of development experts were funded by a small grant from IFAD to assess IFAD’s track record in scaling up successful interventions, its operational policies and
processes, instruments, resources and incentives, and to provide recommendations to management for how to turn IFAD into a scaling-up institution. Beyond IFAD,
this institutional scaling up review is a pilot exercise that can serve as an example for other development institutions.

Desertification occurs when the tree and plant cover that binds the soil is removed. It occurs when trees and bushes are stripped away for fuelwood and timber, or to clear land for cultivation. It occurs when animals eat away grasses and erode topsoil with their hooves. It occurs when intensive farming depletes the nutrients in the soil.

Wind and water erosion aggravate the damage, carrying away topsoil and leaving behind a highly infertile mix of dust and sand. It is the combination of these factors
that transforms degraded land into desert.