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Financial exclusion is acute in rural Mozambique, and women are disproportionately impacted. Closing the funding gap to catalyse private-sector investment in rural communities can make all the difference.

We asked four farmers’ organization leaders from around the world about current challenges, new developments and their hopes for the future at the eighth global meeting of the Famers’ Forum.

Growing food is a challenge in the harsh desert landscape of northwestern China. But thanks to new greenhouses built by a local cooperative, this village is bursting with fruits, vegetables and mushrooms.

There’s an international day for nearly every global issue you can think of. Learn how they come into being, the key observances for rural people – and why they matter.

Climate finance is complicated, and we get a lot of questions about everything it entails. We’ve put together some answers to the ones we receive most often.

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.

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.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s drylands – that is, the areas where more water is lost through evaporation than gained through rainfall – are facing widespread degradation. There are many factors causing this, but one of the most prominent is the use of agricultural practices that aren’t adapted to the land, such as overgrazing and intensive agriculture.

From California to the Sahel, from the steppes of Central Asia to the Andes, drylands are some of the most productive ecosystems in the world. But they’re also some of the most fragile.

In many countries, we have the opportunity to partner with public policies and programmes to deliver the services our project participants need. Although effective inter-institutional coordination is never simple, it is doable – and entirely worth the effort.    

At the heart of this year’s session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is “free, prior and informed consent.” Quite a mouthful! But what does it really mean? And why does it matter?

Learn more about food sovereignty and what it means for indigenous peoples with Dr Elifuraha Laltaika, a professor of law and expert on indigenous peoples’ rights.

Over the millennia, indigenous peoples have developed practices that honour the interconnectedness of people and nature – yet all too often, their contributions are overlooked and devalued. IFAD is committed to supporting indigenous peoples in overcoming poverty and meeting global challenges through building on their identities and cultures.

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.

Sustainable development can only be achieved with the contributions of rural women, yet they face many challenges. Let’s meet three women who have transformed their lives with the help of the JP RWEE initiative.

IFAD and UN Women were each working in rural China, helping women access new opportunities and gain an equal say in their communities. Then the two agencies decided to collaborate, opening up new ways to fulfil their respective mandates – rural development on one hand, and women’s empowerment on the other.

Farming can be a risky business indeed. Recently, some IFAD-supported initiatives have begun piloting crop insurance programmes for participating farmers – and for KCEP-CRAL farmers in Kenya, the new insurance policies arrived just in time.

Two years ago, COVID-19 closures forced us all apart – but the creative use of technology helped keep us together. Today, with tech giants promising to take all of us into the metaverse, IFAD is exploring how cutting-edge technology can help us see the world through each other’s eyes.

Marta had never left her community before and was nervous to travel. Many told Carmelina not to go, saying India was too far and six months was too long to be away. But despite their concerns, the two women embarked on their journey, determined to bring electricity to their communities.

Every year, we recognize a project from each of our regions that empowers rural women and girls. Here, we present the winners of the 2021 Gender Awards.