Blogs

Following months of incessant rain, nearly one third of Pakistan is underwater. Millions of people are affected, thousands have died, and agriculture is at risk. IFAD’s Country Director in Pakistan reflects on what is happening on the ground.

On a recent trip to Guatemala and Honduras with the US Ambassador to the UN agencies based in Rome, IFAD Country Director, René Castro, explains how smallholder farmers are transforming rural communities despite the challenges of climate change.

As the world experiences new and complex crises at an ever-increasing pace, we must back up decision-making with rigorous research and data. Here are three principles to bridge the divide between research and policy.

The latest SOFI report shows that rather than moving towards zero hunger, evermore people are hungry. On the back of these disheartening results, three IFAD experts give their reactions to the report.

At IFAD, we take a community-driven, bottom-up approach to project design. This creates a sense of ownership for rural communities and governments alike. A recent example from Ethiopia shows how government and communities came together to design investments in building resilience.

Chef Anahita Dhondy is a passionate advocate for Parsi food – the rich cuisine of India’s Zoroastrian community to which she belongs – as well as for the use of local, seasonal, sustainable ingredients. We recently caught up with her to hear more about her work in and out of the kitchen.

Chef Thomas Zacharias is a big fan of storytelling as a way to get people interested in fixing our food systems. We caught up with him to learn more about what drives him to tell the stories of the farmers he’s met and to champion local, seasonal, sustainable ingredients.

IFAD and China are celebrating 40 years of cooperation. Over the last four decades, IFAD has supported China’s development and China has been a key supporter and champion of our work. Here, we look back on 40 years of achievement and look forward to where the next few decades will take us.

Conventional wisdom has long held that giving grants to small-scale farmers produces temporary gains at best. But recently, our research into a grants-based intervention employed by PRICE, an IFAD-funded initiative in Rwanda, found benefits that have lasted for five years and counting.