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Joyce Njoro, nutrition specialist at IFAD, talks about the chronic impact of malnutrition and undernutrition.

China is the world's largest greenhouse gases (GHG) emitter, yet it is also the world's leading country in energy production from renewable sources.

Datasets on crop production increasingly need to take climate change into consideration, given its potentially profound repercussions for agriculture.

Equality for women can be a cornerstone in building a world without hunger and poverty, according to experts from IFAD attending Women Deliver 2019, but only if it is extended to the 1.7 billion women and girls who live in some of the world poorest rural areas.

IFAD is launching an innovative global dance challenge, asking young people to make their moves matter and record a 15-second dance video in support of creating opportunities for rural youth in some of the world's poorest countries.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) today launched the United Nations’ Decade of Family Farming and a Global Action Plan to boost support for family farmers, particularly those in developing countries.

There are more than 7.5 million smallholder farmers in Kenya, accounting for about 75 per cent of the country's total agricultural output.

In 1992, Khadim Thiam established a tiny workshop in Tambacounda, Senegal, to produce agricultural equipment, such as hoes, seed drills, ploughs and animal-traction carts.

The President of IFAD, Gilbert F. Houngbo, will be in Maputo, Mozambique for the Growing Blue Conference where he will speak to the need for greater investment in sustainable development for rural people whose livelihoods depend on aquatic resources including small-scale fisheries, aquaculture and coastal environments.

Donal Brown, Associate Vice-President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is visiting the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam this week to review progress made together to improve lives and reduce poverty in rural areas.

In 2017, IFAD took its first plunge into the private sector investment space by launching the Uganda Yield Fund in partnership with the European Union.

The President of the IFAD, Gilbert F. Houngbo, will travel to the United Republic of Tanzania and meet President John Pombe Joseph Magufuli and other high-ranking officials to discuss investments to improve food and nutrition security, provide employment opportunities for rural youth and reduce poverty.

The heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) today concluded a joint visit to the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) with a call for greater investment in nutrition.

In the Sierra Norte mountain range in Mexico lives a special breed of bee. Known locally as pisilnekmej, the Scaptotrigona Mexicana is a member of the family native to the American continent whose distinctive trait is that they have no sting.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has signed a financing agreement with the Government of the Philippines to reduce poverty and increase incomes for 469,200 rural people in 20 of the poorest provinces in Mindanao and Eastern Visayas regions.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) signed an agreement today to strengthen their collaborative efforts to end hunger and poverty in developing countries around the world.

The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), with a representative from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), will visit the Lao People's Democratic Republic from 14-16 May 2019 to raise greater awareness about the importance of integrated food systems to improve food and nutrition security, and to see first-hand the agencies’ collaborative programmes in action.

Three United Nations agencies today launched a new European Union-supported global initiative to address the root causes of rural gender inequalities and thus strengthen efforts to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

A group of courageous Guatemalan women set off in 2010 to form their own farming cooperative, "4Pinos" after facing discrimination in the men's cooperative.

Whether paid or unpaid, women undertake a wide range of tasks in rural contexts and this contribution to rural economies is often undervalued.

IFAD is seeking an external chair to oversee the IFAD12 Consultation and support the achievement of a positive outcome for IFAD, its Member States and – above all – the 2.5 billion people in developing countries whose livelihoods directly or indirectly depend on farming.

Including smallholder farmers in Rwanda in the production and export of cash crops is vital to increasing their incomes and ultimately to reducing rural poverty.

The IFAD-funded Value Chain Development Programme in Nigeria assists cassava and rice smallholder farmers through a value chain approach to enhance productivity, promote agro-processing and increased access to markets. The programme aims to transform the agricultural sector of rural Nigeria by achieving food security, increasing incomes and creating new employment opportunities.

The Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN) comprises 18 countries that share a common interest in assessing the effectiveness of the major multilateral organisations they fund.

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) will be held on 22 April to 3 May in New York. Here is our shortlist of books on the diverse issues affecting Indigenous Peoples around the world that will be discussed at the Forum.

Anyone who stops by Berefet notices how local people cherish the community garden in this small village in the western Gambia.

In the Chencha region of southern Ethiopia, erosion continues to be a pressing concern for the Gamo people, one of the main indigenous tribes of Ethiopia. The Gamo people live in the highland area and primarily practice mixed agriculture and weaving.

Adolescence is the transition period between childhood and adulthood – the perfect opportunity to improve nutrition and correct poor nutritional practices.

Climate change has made crop production more unpredictable – if rainfall helped this harvest, an unexpected drought could destroy the next. So how can one decide to invest in millet in Chad's Kanem region or if it's too risky put money in wheat in Lesotho's Thaba-Tseka?

Why women are key to better nutrition and global poverty eradication – an event organised by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) at the Perugia International Journalism Festival

Farmers in Rwanda can lose around 30 per cent of their harvests before they even reach the market, due to a lack of adequate means to dry, store and transport the crops.

Ideas are the lifeblood of innovation. To accelerate rural transformation while tackling rural poverty, food insecurity, nutrition, job creation and climate change, innovative ideas are needed.

About 10,000 cocoa smallholder producers in Liberia will benefit from a new US$47.6 million project that aims to improve their food and nutrition security and raise their incomes by modernizing cocoa farming, increasing production and developing markets.

This week I had the chance to witness the impressive resilience and creativity of people working to improve agriculture in Cabo Verde.

Every day Dienaba Sow travels 3.5 kilometres from her home in Hodio village towards Toung, in Senegal's Louga region, to collect water for her family's daily needs.

The world needs to harness the power of exchanges between countries in the Global South if we are to reduce poverty and improve food and nutrition security.

A conference taking place this week in Buenos Aires, Argentina reminds us that developing countries today look as much to each other for help along their path to development as they do to the developed world.

Hoy martes 19 de marzo a las 08:30 tuvo lugar la inauguración oficial de la nueva Sede Sub-Regional para Mesoamérica y el Caribe del Fondo Internacional de Desarrollo Agrícola (FIDA), la agencia especializada del Sistema de las Naciones Unidas que brinda apoyo financiero y asistencia técnica para promover procesos de transformación rural, inclusiva y sostenible a nivel global.

Rural development projects financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have contributed to increased productivity and incomes in Sri Lanka, according to a new evaluation report presented today in Colombo.

Consumers increasingly want to know whether the food and beverage brands they buy from are doing social and environmental good, including doing right by the smallholder farmers in global food supply chains.

With traditional crops abandoned for lucrative cash crops, malnutrition rates can quickly rise.

Nearly 30,000 vulnerable households will be better equipped to deal with the fragility created by past conflict and the impacts of climate change thanks to a US$29 million project announced today that aims to improve food and nutrition security in four sub-prefectures of the Central African Republic.

On International Women’s Day, the United Nations' International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will kick off a campaign aimed at closing the gender gap in agriculture by drawing attention to the often overlooked contributions that rural women in developing countries make to rural economies, local communities and to improving the lives of rural families – men, women and children.

In many parts of the world, women are more likely to be food insecure than men. That’s despite the fact that in many countries, many women work in agriculture and are responsible for preparing food.

The Independent Office of Evaluation of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of Sri Lanka are holding a one-day workshop in Colombo to share the conclusions of an independent evaluation of IFAD's country strategy and rural development programme in Sri Lanka.

About 34,000 vulnerable rural households in Sierra Leone will benefit from a new US$72.6 million project that aims to improve food and nutrition security and raise the incomes of smallholder farmers by modernizing agriculture, increasing production and developing markets.

Through the power of a women’s farming co-operative in Rwanda, Claudine is using new techniques and seeds for better cassava harvests.

More school children are eating well because of Rekha, a business innovator in India who through a women’s cooperative is making nutrition bars with local rice.

Irma, a young Q’eqchi woman and farmer from Guatemala, is working to reforest over 400 hectares of land damaged by climate change, illegal logging and fires.

IFAD’s FFR is launching a global Call for Proposals (CfP), aimed at identifying strong proposals and methodologies for collecting and analysing data on remittance markets in Africa, along with its most relevant corridors.

Irrigation is a lynchpin of rural development strategies. In particular, small-scale irrigation projects are commonplace due to their relatively low cost and user-led management.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Egypt signed a financing agreement today to reduce poverty and enhance food and nutrition security by sustainably improving incomes and resilient livelihoods for 450,000 rural people in the Matrouh Governorate.

Pope Francis set the tone for the 42nd session of IFAD’s annual Governing Council meeting (14 - 15 February) by saying that hunger can be made a part of the world’s past, but only if all institutions and people work together, and only if these efforts are owned locally and driven by those who are suffering most, as architects of their own development.

An impact fund with an innovative approach for attracting much needed capital to the rural areas of developing countries will be launched today at the annual meeting of Member States of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) ended its 42nd Governing Council meeting today by highlighting the need for more innovative approaches to financing development – particularly in rural areas of developing countries where the majority of the world's poorest people live.

After performing a work by Johann Sebastian Bach, world-renowned violinist and UN Messenger of Peace, Midori, called on Pope Francis and other world leaders in attendance at the United Nation's International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) annual meeting today to believe in the transformative power of women and girls in underserved remote communities.

Today during the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) annual meeting of Member States, award-winning choreographer, dancer and actress Sherrie Silver issued an urgent call-to-action to heads-of-state, government ministers, and development leaders to listen and invest in rural youth.

Pope Francis set the tone for the 42nd session of the annual Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) by saying that hunger can be made a part of the world’s past, but only if all institutions and people work together, and only if these efforts are owned locally and driven by those who are suffering most, as architects of their own development.

Pope Francis today highlighted the importance of rural development and the essential role played by the United Nations' International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in achieving the first two Sustainable Development Goals – ending global hunger and poverty.

Leaders attending the 4th Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples' Forum, held at the International Fund for Agricultural Development's (IFAD's) headquarters, called on governments to recognise indigenous peoples’ contributions in the fight to reduce the impacts of climate change and encourage sustainable development around the world.

Nearly 235,000 vulnerable households will benefit from a US$101 million project that aims to improve the living conditions and climate resilience of rural populations in five provinces of Burundi.

The EAT-Lancet Commission presents a global planetary health diet that is healthy for both people and planet. Discover the report’s key takeaways and the specific actions that farmers can take to contribute to the Great Food Transformation.

IFAD will be announcing a new official role for celebrity Sherrie Silver - the MTV award-winning choreographer, dancer and actress from Rwanda.

Over 51,000 households in Benin will benefit from a US$104.4 million project that aims to reduce rural poverty through a value chain approach, which can contribute to reducing food imports and improving the competitiveness of small farmers’ products in national and global markets.

Today’s most pressing problems will need cross-sector collaboration and innovation at all scales.

Over 50,000 vulnerable rural households in Togo will benefit from a US$35 million project that aims to spur inclusive rural economic growth and create employment opportunities in rural areas through a value chains approach, according to the details of a financing agreement signed today by government of Togo and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Pope Francis will address the 42nd session of the annual Governing Council meeting of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), where he will be joined by notable speakers, including the President of the Dominican Republic, Danilo Medina Sánchez, H.E. Gerardine Mukeshimana, Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Republic of Rwanda and the Prime Minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte.

Over the years international support for indigenous peoples has grown, also sanctioned by international declarations.

IFAD is pleased to announce the launch of the second call for proposals for projects to be funded by the China-IFAD SSTC Facility.

The fourth global meeting of the Indigenous Peoples' Forum at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) promotes indigenous peoples' knowledge and innovations for climate resilience and sustainable development.

Eight projects have been approved under the first call for proposals for US$3.6 million. These projects cover a range of issues, from water conservation, rural youth innovations, rural business-to-business linkages to bamboo production.

Gendo Gembela Tsire is a women’s group in Chencha district, Ethiopia who are demonstrating the process of making kocho (to make traditional flatbread) and bula (a flour blend prepared as a porridge) from the enset crop.

"Blue Economy" is the new buzzword in the international sustainable development agenda. But what is it and where does it fit in IFAD's development work?

Pope Francis will address heads-of-state, government ministers, and policy and development leaders during the opening ceremony of the 42nd annual Governing Council meeting of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), 14-15 February 2019 in Rome.

Approximately 40 per cent of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers of the coast, and overall the world’s coastal population is increasing fast.

IFAD is piloting the use of household methodologies (HHMs) for gender equality and climate change adaptation as a way to accelerate progress towards the economic empowerment of rural women in Rwanda.

World-renowned violinist and United Nations Messenger of Peace, Midori, travelled to Viet Nam to meet with and perform for villagers in a remote and poverty-stricken community to raise awareness of the challenges faced by rural women.

We asked colleagues for their recommended reading on issues relevant to global development from gender to development to finance. If you are looking to read something a little more serious this holiday season, check out our list below.

Over 43,700 vulnerable rural households in Senegal will benefit from a US$72.4 million programme that aims to improve food and nutrition security and incomes of smallholder crop and livestock farmers in four regions of Senegal.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has signed a financing agreement with the Government of Myanmar to reduce poverty, and improve food security and nutrition for over 390,000 rural people in the northern Magway region and southern Chin state.

Halimé Djimet is leading a collective of women in Chad to produce and market their sesame seed oil successfully.

The European Union has committed €45 million to the establishment of a new impact fund that will boost investments in small rural agribusinesses across emerging markets.

The world-renowned violinist and UN Messenger of Peace, Midori, will travel to rural Viet Nam this week to meet with and perform for villagers in a remote and poverty-stricken community where projects supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have been working to improve conditions.

One of the major challenges facing smallholders is getting adequate and cost-efficient protection against price volatility and climate-related impacts on production.

Seven women and men from Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and Ivory Coast take part in a one-week learning exchange programme in Brazil focused on climate resilient post-harvest management of cassava.

An international conference in Poland will try to finalise a deal on how to tackle climate change, but delegates from almost 200 countries are yet to agree on how to implement the Paris climate accord reached three years ago.

Delegates from some 200 countries are meeting for two weeks of talks on tackling climate change in Katowice, Poland at an event hosted by the United Nations.

Over 30,800 vulnerable rural households in Uganda will benefit from a US$210.4 million project that aims to sustainably increase rural livelihoods by supporting an efficient oil palm industry that complies with modern environmental and social standards.

Rural development projects financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have contributed to increase productivity, incomes and food security in Kenya, according to a new report presented today in the capital city of Nairobi.

Traditional rainfall patterns are changing in Chad, making it increasingly difficult for the poorest populations who rely on small farming for subsistence, to successfully plant and harvest their crops.

Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel calls on the international community to increase food production and help create jobs in rural areas to help defeat poverty and hunger.

The Independent Office of Evaluation of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of Kenya are holding a one-day workshop to present the results of an independent evaluation of IFAD's country strategy and programme in Kenya.

An innovative solution is improving nutrition in rural areas of Madhya Pradesh, India, where 42% of children suffer from malnutrition.

In his first visit to Zimbabwe since taking office as President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Gilbert F. Houngbo will meet President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa and other government officials to discuss investments to improve food and nutrition security, provide employment opportunities for rural youth, and reduce poverty.

Donal Brown, IFAD Associate Vice-President, Programme Management Department, will meet with government officials during a four-day visit to Egypt that is centred on IFAD investments to galvanize rural development and transform marginalized areas.

Against the backdrop of rising global hunger, Pope Francis will join world leaders at the opening ceremony of the Forty-Second session of the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a United Nations agency, on 14 February 2019.

A six-day side event series at COP24, identifying actions to transform global food systems to deliver on food security, adaptation to climate change, and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Cornelia Richter, Vice-President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), begins a four-day visit to Bolivia today to meet with government officials and development partners to discuss ways to strengthen alliances and have a greater impact on the lives of rural poor people in the country.

Development projects financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have contributed to increased agricultural productivity and food security levels in Burkina Faso, according to results from an independent evaluation presented today.

A new project targeting 57,000 of Burkina Faso’s most vulnerable smallholder farmer households will be launched 23 November in Ouagadougou, and will help toward improving food security and incomes in the Boucle du Mouhoun, Cascades and Hauts Bassins Regions.

Agencias de las Naciones Unidas con sede en Roma presentaron durante la Semana de la Alimentación y la Agricultura, en Buenos Aires, un informe de su trabajo conjunto

As part of the FARM project, local facilities called Knowledge Centres are being established at the community level in several villages in Myanmar.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) released its latest report on the transformation of rural areas, renewing its commitment to empower young people in developing countries as agents of change.

Almost half the world's agricultural workers are women, yet they own less land than men. Farmer Awa Jagne speaks about how access to land has changed her life.

In areas of Guatemala which are chronically affected by droughts, IFAD-supported irrigation schemes and practices make farmland four times more productive.

In this episode of Recipes for Change, Fiji's favorite chef, Lance Seeto, discovers how prolonged drought is threatening taro - Tonga's staple ingredient - when he joins a local farmer to cook Luu Ika (tuna with taro leaves).

Burundi's civil war may have ended more than two decades ago, but violence in the country continues. Many of its victims are women, whose rights under the law are often ignored. Now a unique legal aid programme is helping thousands of women like Maura Ntukamazina learn about the law and reclaim their rights.

Vietnam is the world's second largest exporter of rice and 60 percent of it is grown in the Mekong Delta. But now farmers in at least two provinces say the future of rice production is threatened because of rising sea levels and temperature increases attributed to climate change.

On Bolivia's high Andean plain, 4,500 metres above sea level, alpacas and llamas are becoming big business for poor ranchers.

Weather patterns are becoming more unpredictable in the Sahel region of Burkina Faso. Farmers say the rainy season that once began regularly in June is often delayed and when the rain finally does come the sudden force and volume of water can cause flooding and destroy crops.

In The Gambia, women often farm on degraded, unproductive land. The more fertile land is usually reserved for men. But things are changing.

Like thousands of poor farmers living on the slopes of East Mount Kenya, Christine Mugure Munene used to depend on seasonal rains to water her crops. Now she has water whenever she wants.