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Interventions for improving livelihoods
March 2009
Climate change represents an additional challenge to rural people in SSA – and a further reason for investment in water control. Smallholder farmers, pastoralists and artisanal fishers are among the most vulnerable to this threat. While projections of changes in annual rainfall vary across Africa, these groups will experience the negative effects of increased temperature and extreme events. For them, enhanced control of water will become critical in building resilience to increased climate variability.
Guidance Notes for institutional analysis in rural development programmes: an overview
March 2009
Guidance notes for institutional analysis in rural development programmes provides a synthesis of the training materials developed as part of the Institutional Analysis (IA) methodology. They propose that we rethink how we conceptualize and promote institutional change, particularly for pro-poor service delivery. They provide a framework and the analytical tools for designing programmes and projects that feature implementation modalities based on some of the core principles of good governance, focusing on “pro-poor governance” and systemic sustainability at the micro and meso levels.
Reinforcing gender equity
March 2009
Women constitute two-thirds of the 1.2 billion poor people in the world. The great majority live in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, regions that are also home to most of the world’s ‘water poor’ – those with limited access to reliable, safe supplies of water for productive and domestic uses. The role women play in reducing food insecurity and poverty – through their knowledge of multiple uses of water, crop production, local biodiversity, soils and local water resources – is recognized internationally. However, despite this, they are often still excluded from decision-making processes in new water management approaches and other natural resource allocation projects and initiatives. Globalization, changing market dynamics and climate change are altering the rural context for most poor rural people, resulting in increased vulnerability to natural hazards and economic uncertainties, above all for women.
IFAD and the League of Arab States
January 2009
Poverty poses a constant threat to economic growth, trade reform, private sector development, knowledge, governance and gender equality. Poverty among the 22 members of the League of Arab States (LAS) is primarily a rural phenomenon. A quarter of the region’s population, or about 80 million people, live below national poverty lines. Between 60 and 70 percent of these poor people live in rural areas. One of the most pressing challenges in the region is the high rate of unemployment, particularly among young people. Official unemployment rates average 13 per cent, and in some countries the jobless rate among young people is twice as high.
Annual report on investigative and anti-corruption activities 2008
January 2009
The Investigation Section of the Office of Audit and Oversight (OA/IS) has a mandate to investigate alleged irregular practices, namely (i) fraud and corruption, in relation to entities, contractors and non-staff individuals applying for or participating in an IFAD-financed project or headquarters-related contract, and (ii) staff misconduct, pursuant to the adoption by the Executive Board in December 2005 of the IFAD Policy on Preventing Fraud and Corruption in its Activities and Operations (EB 2005/85/R.5/Rev.1, paragraph 26). Implementation of this policy, along with the establishment of a Sanctions Committee, have aligned IFAD with best practices applied by other United Nations agencies and the major multilateral development banks (MDBs) in this area. OA/IS was fully staffed in 2008, enabling it to pursue its dual role of conducting investigations and, more broadly, implementing the IFAD anticorruption agenda.
IFAD in the MERCOSUR area
December 2008
Working to enable poor rural people to overcome poverty, IFAD operates in the MERCOSUR countries at two levels: • at the subregional level, within the institutional framework of MERCOSUR, it promotes a platform for dialogue between governments and smallholder farmers’ associations, with the aim of increasing public investment in family farming • at the national level, it provides funding and technical assistance to governments for the implementation of rural development programmes and projects that translate into action the agreements reached at subregional level.
La pobreza rural en Uruguay
December 2008
El trabajo del FIDA en Uruguay se desarrolla en dos niveles distintos aunque complementarios: • a nivel subregional, en el marco de las instituciones del MERCOSUR, promueve una plataforma de diálogo entre gobiernos y asociaciones de pequeños productores, con el fin de aumentar la relevancia política de la agricultura familiar y la inversión pública en su favor; • a nivel nacional, proporciona financiación y asistencia técnica al gobierno para la ejecución de programas y proyectos que traduzcan en acciones las políticas públicas definidas en el ámbito de la subregión y adaptadas al contexto del país.
IFAD and GEF partnership on climate change - Fighting a global challenge at the local level
November 2008
There is a general consensus that rural areas and rural livelihood systems will bear the brunt of climate change across the globe. More frequent extreme weather events such as heat waves and intense precipitation are likely to place the livelihoods of many rural people at risk. Africa is expected to be the most vulnerable continent to climate change, and will face a decline in both food security and agricultural activity, particularly in relation to subsistence farming. The impact of climate change on agriculture is expected to be devastating in many parts of the developing world. Especially in the least developed countries, declining crop productivity and livestock deaths associated with further global warming pose a serious threat to food security and national economies. Nonetheless, vulnerability to climate change can be exacerbated by poverty, marginality and low adaptive capacity. An integrated approach is therefore needed to bridge the gap between local development and the global challenge of climate change.
Custodians of culture and biodiversity: Indigenous peoples take charge of their challenges and opportunities
November 2008
The objective of this study was to provide an overall and a country analysis of the needs of indigenous peoples and the solutions they propose to tackle rural poverty.