Amid rising challenges posed by climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic shocks, the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) doubled down on its commitment to the world’s poorest rural communities in 2021.

The world entered 2021 on a precipice. We all knew the path we had been on was unsustainable and inequitable, and that nothing less than transformative change would be needed for recovery. As we face the challenges 2022 brings, we’re looking back to the lessons we learned in 2021 to guide our next steps forward.

In the current context of emergency, France and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) yesterday reaffirmed their joint commitment to averting a global food crisis and investing in more resilient and sustainable agriculture.

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.

During a visit to Cameroon, Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Rémy Rioux, Director General of Agence Française de Développement (AFD) reaffirmed their shared vision for agricultural development in response to the challenge of food security.

When Megnath Ale Magar returned to his village in Nepal after a decade working abroad, he found a degraded land. In just three years, he transformed his barren farmland into a lush ecosystem using a permaculture approach.

In Africa, almost 800 million people are facing food insecurity. This situation is made worse by a triple crisis - COVID-19, climate change, and conflict. In this podcast, our team take us on a journey through the nutrition landscape for small-scale farmers across Africa.

Five Country Directors from IFAD’s highest priority countries in its Crisis Response Initiative tell us how the war in Ukraine is impacting rural people on the ground.

Climate change, commercial agribusiness, and societal norms threaten small-scale farmers’ way of life in a small village in Sudan. A women’s savings and credit group is changing this.

COVID-19 presented new challenges for poor rural farmers in Pakistan. An IFAD-supported project shared personalized advice to farmers via their mobile phones to help overcome the challenges of the pandemic.

Vietnamese rural people need to farm to eat and make a living. But if they don’t do this sustainably, it can damage the land and degrade the forests. IFAD’s new project helps them manage their forests sustainably, while earning a decent living.

IFAD today appointed its top finance executive, Alvaro Lario, to be its next president, choosing a champion of private sector investments to lead the UN agency into battle against a global food security crisis triggered by war in Ukraine, climate change and the economic shock of COVID-19.

The number of people affected by hunger globally rose to as many as 828 million in 2021, an increase of about 46 million since 2020 and 150 million since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

Projects funded by IFAD helped around 257,000 rural families to overcome poverty in Brazil from 2016 to 2022, according to a report on implementation of the guiding IFAD Country Strategy (or COSOP) for Brazil in 2016-2022, which was presented today to the Brazilian Government in Brasilia.  

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.

20 million people in the Horn of Africa are at risk of starvation, largely due to a four-year drought making the region the driest it’s been in forty years. Dr Joseph Awange and IFAD’s Satu Santala discuss the root causes of famine and the solutions we can put in place.

Micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the cornerstones of a vibrant rural economy. Discover ten rural businesses from every continent that are thriving with IFAD's support.