Rome, 15 November 2009 – On the eve of the World Summit on Food Security, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB) have reached a groundbreaking US$1.5 billion framework cofinancing agreement that will strengthen their 30-year collaboration in supporting the world's poorest people in common member countries.

The agreement – the result of talks held in Rome today between Ahmad Mohamed Ali, President of IsDB, and Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD – comes at a critical moment, when the international community has recognized that agricultural development is fundamental to feeding the world's population. Today, sustained investment in agriculture – especially smallholder agriculture – is acknowledged as the key to food security.

Using their own resources, IFAD and IsDB will jointly finance priority projects in most of the 52 common member countries under their respective three-year lending programmes for 2010-2012. The two institutions hope that this cofinancing arrangement will attract additional funding from other development partners for joint interventions.

With their shared objectives in the field of agriculture and rural development, the two institutions will focus their efforts on increasing productivity, yields, processing capacities and access to markets. Microfinance, combined with capacity-building and technology transfer, will enable hundreds of thousands of project beneficiaries to undertake a multitude of microenterprises and income-generating activities. IFAD and IsDB are committed to working together to improve rural infrastructure, promote local economic development and enhance food security.

Press release No.: IFAD/54/09

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) works with poor rural people to enable them to grow and sell more food, increase their incomes and determine the direction of their own lives. Since 1978, IFAD has invested over US$11 billion in grants and low-interest loans to developing countries, empowering some 350 million people to break out of poverty. IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized UN agency based in Rome – the UN's food and agricultural hub. It is a unique partnership of 165 members from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), other developing countries and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB) is a multilateral development financing institution headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, started operations in 1975. It has 56 member countries and aim to foster the economic development and social progress of member countries and Muslim communities in accordance with Shari'ah, or Islamic law. Since 1975, IDB has extended over US$ 60 billion in trade and project financing assistance, soft loans and technical assistance grants.