Blogs

When climate and natural disasters strike, it’s rural people who are worst affected. Investing in their resilience ensures that they not only endure times of crisis, but emerge stronger. Associate Vice-President of Programmes Donal Brown explains how rural communities can change the world for the better.

As the world faces a myriad of crises, experts fear that the progress rural women and girls have worked so hard for may be reversed. Here is how IFAD is working to prevent this.

Just as the shadow of COVID-19 was lifting from many parts of the world, new crises have arisen – and they’re a particularly difficult challenge for poor rural people in developing countries.

Over a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s still a lot to learn about how the labour market in developing countries is reshaping itself – especially in terms of gender dynamics. Our latest study tracks employment trends in Nigeria with both pre- and post-pandemic data.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to waves of internal migration as urban workers return to rural areas. IFAD must identify solutions to the challenges this phenomenon has created, and will continue to create, for rural agricultural development. This is especially critical from a gender equity perspective.

Given the already-high levels of poverty and vulnerability faced by small-scale rural producers, the pandemic has hit them and their families particularly hard. So, what should be the priorities for organisations, like IFAD, in the coming years?

 

In 2021, the impact of the epidemic and the global economic recession will have an impact on world food security. After the epidemic, what problems will global food security face and how to deal with it?

As we approach the first anniversary of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s an important moment to take stock on the impact of the pandemic, and to reflect on what we have learned, and what we can do better going forward.

Reflecting on the fundamental role that sustainable food production and consumption plays in promoting food security and sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems.

The scale of the challenge has become ever more daunting across the region. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is creating disruption - but sometimes offers opportunities for innovative solutions for rural farmers.

Chef Lance Seeto is an icon of South Pacific cuisine. He’s also been a supporter of IFAD’s Recipes for Change campaign for more than five years now.

Small-scale farmers face multiple challenges in Cambodia - with limited access to credit and vulnerability to climate change. 

Migrants are essential workers; they contribute to the economy of the places they go and, through remittances, to their communities back home.

In April, the World Bank projected a sharp decline of about 20 per cent in global remittances as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown. 

The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the loss of millions of jobs in the developed and developing world. 

In a world living with Covid-19, it is clear that supply chains and logistics should be simple and easy to manage. And that’s what several Indian states are doing.

Agricultural extension services play a fundamental role in building producers’ capacities to maintain good agricultural practices.

Since the COVID-19 virus outbreak, much information and misinformation has been circulated about wet markets and an international rallying cry has been made for wet markets to be better regulated or even closed down.

Resilience has become the talk of the town in the development community.

One emerging lesson from the pandemic is that those who are already vulnerable are likely to be the most severely impacted. 

In most of Africa, people are more likely to die from starvation caused by the economic fallout from the pandemic than from COVID-19 itself.

Development encompasses a wide range of actions that enables people, communities and nations to thrive even after projects have ended. 

It has been really inspiring to receive updates from the field over the past two months illustrating how IFAD-supported projects are continuing to deliver. 

Last week, the China Grain Reserve Group announced its intention to purchase 22 million tonnes of imported grain during 2020. Should China worry about food security?

This year’s theme for the International Day for Biological Diversity is “Our Solutions are in Nature.”

How can we enhance local capacity to respond to this emergency in an agile and inclusive manner?

Africa has so far escaped the worst health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the continent looks like it could be the worst hit.

With most of the world sheltering in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ILO estimates that about 2.7 billion people are currently affected by workplace closures.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 820 million people were living in hunger. Tens of millions more will join them if we do not take the right actions, and quickly. 

Past experience tells us that quick, tailored support is required to ensure that the impacts of our projects are protected from the effects of the COVID-19 crisis.

After many years of sustained annual reductions in poverty and hunger across the Asia-Pacific region, the COVID-19 global pandemic is threatening a massive reversal of these gains and driving Asian countries into recession. 

With half of the planet’s population locked down, the global economy brought to a halt and the number of cases reaching into the millions, it is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest crisis of our time.

The tremendous progress in reducing poverty made by India over the past 25 years could now be reversed because of the unprecedented emergency facing all of us – the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cambodia has made remarkable progress and achieved lower-middle-income status - but the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to strain the entire economy.

An IFAD team in Bangladesh provided a proposal to the Government for a certified safe transport and logistics system for movement of inputs and produce in rural areas.

Amidst the suffering and economic hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency, one silver lining has emerged: an interruption to the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation stemming from human activity.

The COVID-19 pandemic will reshape all our economic choices. Nations have made a crucial choice in recent weeks, choosing human life over economic growth. 

It is easy to lose sight of the big picture when called upon to act quickly in response to the human tragedy caused by COVID-19. 

What started as a health crisis could turn into a food crisis unless we take measures now. Preventing a food crisis is key to maintaining the strength to fight back.

As countries prepare for the pandemic the mandate of a rural development organization may seem to some not particularly relevant to the current crisis. 

It has been three weeks since COVID-19 has drastically altered the daily lives of IFAD staff headquartered in Rome and stationed around the world.

Two months have passed since the beginning of the new coronavirus outbreak in Hubei, China. It seems an appropriate time to reflect on the impact of COVID-19 on rural communities in China, and on the importance of investing in rural people in order to build long-term resilience to shocks.