Knowledge

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.

Despite gains made in socio-economic development since the end of the civil war in 2003, Liberia remains a low-income food-deficit country and is ranked 175th out of 187 countries in the 2013 UNDP Human Development Index. 

Agriculture plays a significant role in Africa, accounting for about 30 per cent of GDP south of the Sahara, as well as a significant proportion of export value. Not surprisingly, in most African countries, 60 per cent or more of employees work in 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.

A Holistic Approach to Farming Research In Egypt, land productivity was improved by an IFAD project that created strong links between farmers, research and extension, and raised resource-use efficiency by integrating crops and livestock. The governorates of Fayoum, Beni Sueif and Minia in Upper Egypt extend for about 200 km along the Nile. In this area, land productivity is low and the potential for bringing additional land into production is limited. The only options available to raise the incomes of rural people living in the area are to improve land productivity and intensify land use. This is what an IFAD project has done through a project consisting of three main elements: 1) agricultural research; 2) the dissemination of research findings through extension activity; and 3) the provision of credit necessary to adopt new technologies. The project established an innovative Farming System Research Unit (FSRU), which operated with a holistic approach. That is to say, the FSRU carried out research activities that were adapted to farmers’ real needs and closely linked to extension delivery, and broadened its focus to include livestock – a relatively neglected area in Egypt.

In 2013, IFAD commissioned a study to analyse project management arrangements for market‑oriented smallholder agriculture. As IFAD adapts to the changing development discourse, the organization has focused increasingly on improving Project Management Unit (PMU) arrangements in order to provide more effective and expanded management and technical skills. This review was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of PMUs and their alignment with the Paris Declaration principles, as well as to identify lessons or frameworks to guide future project management and implementation arrangements. It investigated five case studies drawn from different regions and types of projects.