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Sharing a vision, achieving results: Partnership between the Netherlands and the International Fund for Agricultural Development
support smallholder farmers in creating this future is at the heart of the partnership between the Netherlands and IFAD.
Research Series Issue 6 - Why food and nutrition security matters for inclusive structural and rural transformation
This paper challenges current thinking on the connection between rural transformation and food security & nutrition. It advocates that improving rural and structural transformation has a positive cyclical effect upon communities by improving food availability, access, supplies and utilization which in turn improves the health and education of communities.
Using evidence from across the developing world, the paper creates a policy agenda to maximise potential for smallholder farming to transform local economies.
How to do note - Formalising community-based microfinance institutions
Lessons learned - Formalising community-based microfinance institutions
Toolkit: Formalising community-based microfinance institutions
Rural Development Report 2016: Fostering inclusive rural transformation
The 2016 Rural Development Report focuses on inclusive rural transformation as a central element of the global efforts to eliminate poverty and hunger, and build inclusive and sustainable societies for all. It analyses global, regional and national pathways of rural transformation, and suggests four categories into which most countries and regions fall, each with distinct objectives for rural development strategies to promote inclusive rural transformation: to adapt, to amplify, to accelerate, and a combination of them.
Rural finance: Sustainable and inclusive financing for rural transformation
Policy case study: Viet Nam – Review of experience of the National Target Program for new rural development
Investing in rural people in Sierra Leone
Since initiating its first project in the country in 1980, IFAD has provided a total of US$116.2 million in financing through eight loans and three grants for programmes and projects with a total cost of US$251.9 million. The investment has benefited 513,500 households. Operations were suspended during the civil war and resumed after it ended in 2002.
At that time, IFAD and the African Development Bank established a joint programme coordination unit to facilitate the management and increase the cost-effectiveness of operations in agriculture and the rural sector.
Investing in rural people in Bolivia
IFAD, paying special attention to the needs of disadvantaged groups such as women, youth and indigenous peoples, focuses on strengthening the capacities of rural organizations to assist smallholder farmers in developing profitable rural businesses and tools and strategies to help cope with the challenges posed by climate change.
To achieve this goal, IFAD, in partnership with the Government of Bolivia, designs programmes to develop the technical and business skills of rural organizations, introducing technological innovations to add value to agricultural products by improving their quality and helping smallholder producers to be more competitive.
Furthermore, IFAD-funded operations facilitate the development of public-private joint ventures that help smallholder producers to gain access to markets and value chains.
Remittance flow infographic
Toolkit: Digital financial services for smallholder households
How to do note: Digital financial services for smallholder households
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.
Lessons learned: Digital financial services for smallholder households
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.
The price of development and the cost of inaction (2015)
Diaspora Investment in Agriculture (DIA) initiative
Insights from Participatory Impact Evaluations in Ghana and Vietnam
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).
GFRD2015 Official Report
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.
Executive summary, final report on the participatory impact evaluation of the Root & Tuber Improvement & Marketing Programme in Ghana
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.
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.
The use of remittances and financial inclusion
African Conference on Remittances and Postal Networks – official report
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.
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.