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SAFIN Annual Progress Report 2023
The SAFIN Annual Progress Report 2023 captures the network’s achievements in fostering collaboration with the agricultural finance ecosystem, sharing market intelligence, advocating for small businesses and farmers, and building regional partnerships.
INSURED results 2018-2023
This brief shares the results and lessons learned from the first phase of the Insurance for Rural Resilience and Economic Development (INSURED) programme.
INSURED Indonesia Country Update: Making climate risk insurance available to small-scale producers
IFAD’s INSURED programme has been working with partners in Indonesia to improve the availability of climate risk insurance that enables farmers to strengthen their resilience.
INSURED - Insurance for rural resilience and economic development
INSURED is a technical assistance programme working to strengthen agricultural insurance in IFAD’s portfolio.
SAFIN Annual Progress Report 2022
Rapid inflation in 2022 exacerbated the financing challenges faced by enterprises in the midstream of agricultural value chains.
Agritech and Fintech Providers in East and Southern Africa: A landscape assessment
This report examines the universe of agritech and fintech providers that influence access to finance in East and Southern Africa, exploring their potential to become commercially viable and achieve scale.
Monetizing resilience benefits as a new financial tool to unlock private sector financing
This paper focuses primarily on climate resilience in the agriculture sector. If proven successful, this can be replicated in other resilience sectors such as water, forests and urban development to address shocks beyond climate.
IFAD Briefing Note - Climate Finance: Scaling Investments in Climate Smart Agriculture
This briefing note summarizes the fiscal and financial instruments the public sector can use to support climate-smart small-scale farming. The overall focus is on using limited public funds more efficiently and amplifying impacts.
IFAD Briefing Note - Gender and Climate: Scaling Gender and Climate Investments
IFAD's unique investing position serves as a starting point for a discussion on how it might scale up and support gender-based responses for adaptation and mitigation to climate change.
IFAD Briefing Note - Climate and Conflict: What does the evidence show?
Climate and conflict are linked, and this briefing note summarizes the evidence about the relationship between the two, what role climate finance can play in mitigating their risks, and where policy recommendations can be made to address the vulnerabilities created by both.
Filling in the blanks: How to address data gaps to develop better livestock insurance for smallholder farmers
Gathering good data can reduce the cost of livestock insurance for smallholder farmers, making coverage affordable and building their resilience. The Insurance Toolkit new brief shares lessons learned in Georgia.
Engaging smallholder farmer communities to develop index-based insurance
This knowledge brief explores the benefits of and rationale for community engagement in index insurance initiatives, with examples from a pilot project in rural Ethiopia.
PRIME Africa
Remittances sent by migrant workers to and within Africa were over US$85 billion in 2018, of which US$25 billion were sent by migrants residing in Europe.
Understanding market demand: How to use focus group discussions in the development of inclusive insurance
Understanding market demand is a critical step in the process of developing solutions to meet the risk management needs of rural poor people, particularly with regard to insurance.
Scaling up rural youth access to inclusive financial services for entrepreneurship and employment
This document is an overview of the lessons learned from a project on “Scaling up rural youth access to inclusive financial services for entrepreneurship and employment” in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
Resilience in the market for international remittances during the COVID-19 crisis
This report examines the factors that have contributed to the resilience of remittances during the pandemic.
A technical review of select de-risking schemes to promote rural and agricultural finance in sub-Saharan Africa
This study takes stock of these experiences in an effort to contribute to building up the evidence base to help inform the future strategy and design of similar programmatic interventions.
The IFAD and Slow Food Case for Investment
IFAD and Slow Food share a vision of supporting small-scale, diversified production and consumption mechanisms that focus on improving the marketing of local products.
Lessons learned from IFAD’S inclusive rural and agricultural finance experiments in West and Central Africa during the last decade (2009-2020)
Lessons from a quick review of the diverse and varied financial schemes designed for, accessed by and used by poor smallholders and other rural stakeholders in IFAD’s project portfolio in West and Central Africa over the decade leading up to 2020.
Rapid prototyping for inclusive insurance: Testing customer challenges and gaining early insights on feasibility
Prototyping aims to gather direct feedback on the solution and the wider insurance scheme, incorporate changes before pilot testing, and make any additional adjustments before the official roll-out.
IFAD Inclusive Financial Services Portfolio Stocktaking
This Inclusive Financial Services (IFS) stocktaking exercise assesses IFAD’s capacity to deliver IFS and addresses rural poor market development needs both historically and looking forward within the context of emerging opportunities and challenges.
Good practices and innovations in risk management for agri-SME finance under COVID-19
This report compiles experiences and lessons shared in a Live Talks series on Risk Management for Agri-SME Finance between September and December 2020.
SAFIN Annual Progress Report 2020
This report documents the results achieved from the work among all SAFIN partners.
INSURED Uganda country update: Feasibility study on agricultural insurance for oilseed farmers
What risks and challenges do small-scale producers of oilseeds in Uganda face, and could agricultural insurance help them manage and mitigate those risks?
Managing agricultural risk through remittances: the case of Senegal
Examining the climate finance gap for small-scale agriculture
In a rapidly changing world, agriculture remains the heart of sustainable development. The risks facing the world in this final decade left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals are many, but the opportunities are equally numerous.
Crowdfunding Malian diaspora remittances to finance rural entrepreneurship
The Agri-Business Capital Fund (ABC Fund)
The Agri-Business Capital Fund (ABC Fund) invests in smallholder farmers and rural small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries to support sustainable and inclusive agricultural value chains.
Research Series Issue 51: Inclusive finance and rural youth
This study analyses inclusive finance and rural youth through cutting-age research with new insights and approaches that have emerged over the years in the field.
A manual in mobilizing migrant resources towards agricultural development in the Philippines
Research Series Issue 37: Determinants of cofinancing in IFAD-funded projects - A call to rethink development interventions
IFAD in Sudan: Linking rural women with finance, technology and markets
Investing in rural people in Niger
Niger covers a landlocked 1,267,000 km² tract of the Sahel north of Nigeria. With a poverty rate of 48.9 per cent and income per capita of US$420, Niger is one of the world’s poorest nations. In 2015, it ranked last among 188 countries measured by the United Nations Human Development Index
Occasional paper: IFAD’s experience in scaling up in Asia and the Pacific region - Lessons learned from successful projects and way forward
The Asia and the Pacific region includes the world’s fastest growing and most dynamic countries and is a key driver of growth in the world economy.
Grant Results Sheet - APRACA: Enhancing access of poor rural people to sustainable financial services through policy dialogue, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing in rural finance
agroentrepreneurs, so they are better equipped to face emerging challenges and benefit from new opportunities.
How To Do Note: Access to finance for renewable energy technologies
Lessons learned: Access to finance for renewable energy technologies
Toolkit: Access to finance for renewable energy technologies
Research Series Issue 25 - Structural transformation and poverty in Malawi. Decomposing the effects of occupational and spatial mobility
Grant Results Sheet: FundaK - The Outreach Project: Expanding and scaling up innovative financial inclusion and graduation strategies and tools in Africa
RemitSCOPE - Remittance markets and opportunities Asia and the Pacific
RemitSCOPE, a new website portal, is designed to provide data, analyses and remittancemarket1 profiles on individual countries or areas. In coordination with the Global Forum on Remittances, Investment and Development 2018, RemitSCOPE is being launched to provide market profiles for 50 countries or areas in the Asia and the Pacific region.
The additional four regions will be included gradually: Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Near East and the Caucasus. RemitSCOPE intends to address the fast-changing market realities in the remittance industry in order to help bring together the goals of remittance families, as clients, and the strategies of the private-sector service providers. RemitSCOPE is designed as a free, one-stop shop that is available to any organization or entity interested in accessing all relevant public information on remittances.
Grant Results Sheet: CABFIN - Enhancing the CABFIN partnership’s delivery of policy guidance, capacity development and global learning to foster financial innovations and inclusive investments for agricultural and rural development
implement more effective interventions aimed at increasing access to rural and agricultural finance.
Research Series Issue 19 - Measuring Women's Empowerment in Agriculture: A Streamlined Approach
The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) can be a useful tool to measure the empowerment, agency and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector. However, computing the WEAI in its current form involves large data requirements, resulting in lengthy surveys with several questions on various dimensions and indicators within each dimension. This paper proposes a reduced version of the WEAI, or the R-WEAI, and examines two possible approaches to reduce the data requirements while ensuring comparability to the full WEAI.
Research Series Issue 18 - Do agricultural support and cash transfer programmes improve nutritional status?
Cash transfer and agricultural support programmes are both used to improve nutrition outcomes in developing countries. This paper examines previous reviews of the impact of these programmes and compares the evidence between the two. The paper finds that, although there are about the same number of programmes of each type, many more papers have been written about the cash transfer programmes than the agricultural programmes. While evidence suggests that both programme types improved the quality of food consumption, the paper concludes that both types show weak evidence of improvements in anthropometric outcomes.
Remittances and microfinance networks
South-South and Triangular Cooperation - Highlights from IFAD Portfolio
Remote sensing for index insurance - Findings and lessons learned for smallholder agriculture
Highlights of the IFPRI and IFAD partnership
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) were both created in response to the food crises of the 1970s. We have worked together for more than 20 years to catalyze agricultural and rural development and improve food security in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
IFAD and IFPRI have strengthened the productivity and resilience of smallholder farmers and other rural people, with a particular focus on helping expand their access to innovative local farming methods, climate change mitigation and adaptation technologies and financing, and more profitable markets.
To further promote rural development and transformation, IFAD and IFPRI have built cutting-edge information systems and tools that deliver sound data and analyses to governments, donors, farmer organizations, and other stakeholders. As a result, the two organizations have fostered evidence-based policy making and investments that promote agricultural growth and rural development.
Sending Money Home: Contributing to the SDGs, one family at a time
This report provides data and analysis of remittances and migration trends for developing countries over the past decade, as well as the potential contributions of remittance families to reaching the SDGs by 2030.
Global Forum on Remittances, Investment and Development 2017 - Recommendations
On 15 and 16 June 2017, on the occasion of the International Day of Family Remittances, over 350 practitioners from the public and private sectors gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York for the fifth Global Forum on Remittances, Investment and Development (GFRID). The participants had the opportunity to discuss challenges and opportunities in the remittance market, and present innovative approaches and successful business models, framing the discussions around the role of migrants’ remittances and investment towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) by 2030.
Grant Result Sheet ICRAF - Strengthening rural institutions
The programme, referred to as the Strengthening Rural Institutions (SRI) project, was implemented by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Eastern and Southern Africa Region from 2011 to 2014. The project aimed to bring about a sustainable rural transformation process by strengthening the “institutional infrastructure” for integrated natural resource management, food security and poverty alleviation in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
The project’s main goal was to support grassroots organizations to meaningfully participate in governance processes where their livelihoods and well-being, and the environment, are at stake, with an emphasis on enabling poor rural households to aggregate, mobilize and access rural services.
Research Series Issue 10 - Inclusive finance and inclusive rural transformation
This paper provides an overview of concepts, issues and research on the relationship between financial inclusion and inclusive rural transformation.
It demonstrates how changing demand for financial services, innovations in rural finance, and different investment strategies affect the interplay of supply and demand.
Research Series Issue 9 - Social protection and inclusive rural transformation
This paper analyses how different types of social protection interventions affect rural livelihoods. It examines how these interventions can help rural transformation by increasing productivity and asks how they can influence inclusiveness.
Using country-level evidence, it suggests that the effectiveness of social protection depends upon specific contexts and combinations of interventions, and asks what this means for building policy.
Grant Results Sheet PAMIGA - Responsible and sustainable growth for rural microfinance in sub-Saharan Africa
During the period covered by the project, the landscape of global microfinance was deeply modified and “the game has changed”. On the one hand, the saturation of the market has led to over-indebtedness of very poor clients, scandals and systemic crises that have swept the whole sector in some prominent countries. On the other hand, it has been difficult for the industry to demonstrate tangible impact and, therefore, show that it has delivered against its promises of lifting hundreds of millions of very poor people out of poverty.
In this challenging context, the project aimed to help unlock the economic potential in sub-Saharan Africa, by promoting the growth of existing financial intermediaries that serve rural areas (rural financial institutions, RFIs) so that local entrepreneurs could take advantage of new opportunities to be more productive and more competitive, and improve their living conditions sustainably.
Guide for Practitioners on ‘Institutional arrangements for effective project management and implementation’
Grant Results Sheet IWMI - Mainstreaming innovations and adoption processes from the CGIAR Challenge Programme on Water and Food in IFAD’s portfolio
Investing in rural people in Nicaragua
• Inclusion. Access is facilitated to assets, markets and income-generating activities, and job opportunities increase.
• Productivity. Labour productivity is increased through incentives that facilitate access to information, technology and technical and financial services.
• Sustainability. Environmental, fiscal and institutional sustainability are improved.
Remittances at the Post Office in Africa - Serving the financial needs of migrants and their families in rural areas
This report focuses on African National Postal Operators (NPOs) as one of the several distribution channels for remittances and financial services.
Second African Conference on Remittances and Postal Networks
The Second African Conference on Remittances and Postal Networks was organized in the framework of the African Postal Financial Services Initiative (APFSI), and took place on 15-16 November 2016 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
How to do Strengthening community-based commodity organizations
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.
Policy case study East African Community - Supporting public hearings on the East African Community Cooperative Societies Bill
The Republic of Turkey and IFAD - Partnership for smallholder investments and opportunities
Sending Money Home: European flows and markets
Toolkit: Youth Access to Rural Finance
The Lessons Learned and How To Do Note on this topic provide IFAD country programme managers, project design teams and implementing partners with insights and key guidance on designing and offering appropriate financial services for rural youth. The toolkit on Youth Access to Rural Finance synthesizes best practices and offers examples from around the world.
Lessons learned: Youth Access to Rural Finance
Although there have been improvements in YFS access, youth are still lagging significantly behind adults in being able to access financial tools. Across high- and low-income countries, young people are less likely than adults to have a formal account. There are even starker differences related to a country’s income level, with 21 per cent of youth in low-income economies having a formal account compared with 61 per cent in upper-middle-income economies (Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2013).
Even with this data, determining the exact extent of youth access to financial services can be complicated because there is a lack of consistent data and definitions on youth (see Box 3). The lack of data is more limited for rural areas.
While there is some analysis of the urban-rural gap in access to financial services, with those living in cities significantly more likely to have an account than rural residents (Klapper, 2012), there are currently no comprehensive studies with disaggregated data for rural youth.
PARM Result Factsheet May 2015
How to do note: Youth access to rural finance
Investing in rural people in Cuba
Given the challenges the agricultural sector faces, IFAD is in a position to serve as one of the country’s strategic partners, contributing to the ongoing modernization process.
Cooperatives in Cuba are key actors in ensuring food security, as they represent 80 per cent of the country’s agricultural production. The Government of Cuba has expressed interest in re-establishing the partnership with IFAD with a view to modernizing agriculture.
This will be achieved mainly through developing non-state smallholder farmer business cooperatives. In this respect, IFAD is well placed to provide technical assistance through its projects to increase the physical, human, social and environmental assets of cooperatives.
Financing microenterprises led by women
Investing in rural people in Somalia
Somalia’s poverty and food security situation remains critical after years of conflict and natural disasters. Since the 1980s, IFAD has supported nine programmes in the country for a total of US$140 million.
There is currently no country strategic opportunities programme for Somalia.
However, the strategic objectives of IFAD interventions in Somalia can be summarized as follows:
• Increase incomes and food security by supporting agriculture and related activities, improving access to water, sanitation and health care, strengthening the natural resource base and building rural financial services;
• Identify and promote pro-poor investment mechanisms in rural areas for dissemination, replication and scaling up; and
• Build the capacity of the diaspora and promote the transformation of people in the diaspora into agents of development through remittances – the portion of their earnings that migrants outside the country send home.