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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.

Le FIDA et le Conseil national de concertation et de coopération des ruraux (CNCR) du Sénégal, viennent de signer un Accord de don pour améliorer les revenus des femmes et des jeunes entrepreneurs avicoles villageois ayant subi les conséquences des mesures restrictives prises pour faire face à la pandémie de Covid19.

When covid-19 brought the world to a standstill, IFAD helped farmers’ organizations adopt new ways of operating amid a global pandemic.

As we near the end of 2022, IFAD looks back on some of the themes that defined a year of dramatic change.

Rural people are still paying the highest price for the rise in food, fertilizer and fuel costs. The Crisis Response Initiative was set up as part of IFAD's ongoing efforts to build rural people's resilience to these shocks. Here are selected highlights on the crisis from our teams in the field.

In Sierra Leone, IFAD helps persons with disabilities overcome the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic through farming.

In The Gambia, the second phase of IFAD’s Rural Poor Stimulus Facility helps vulnerable communities get back on their feet after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Faced with the prospect of food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, Samoans turned to an ancient staple to feed their families and communities.

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.

When the Solomon Islands began seeing its first cases of COVID-19 in early 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock activated emergency food relief efforts. But after years of neglecting data collection, how do you find and feed people without addresses, street names or house numbers?

The pandemic pushed up to 80 million people in Asia into extreme poverty. Governments across the region had to respond quickly as incomes fell and food security was threatened. IFAD worked with them to ensure vulnerable rural people got the support they needed.

When a massive tsunami devastated low-lying coastal areas in Tonga, local people had to rebuild their lives from scratch. For many, home gardens provided much needed fresh produce, as well as renewed hope for the future.

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.

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.

Back in early 2020, when the first waves of COVID-19 were spreading around the world, IFAD launched the RPSF as a multi-donor initiative to sustain rural people around the world during the pandemic. With the RPSF’s help, many were able to start small businesses – and today, those businesses are sustaining local economies and building resilience.

COVID-19 lockdowns meant Juana could no longer go to her job in rural Guatemala. But thanks to a loan from her local rural savings bank and IFAD’s Rural Poor Stimulus Facility, Juana started her own business at home.

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.

IFAD launched the Innovatech project today, which aims to develop agricultural (AgriTech) and financial (FinTech) digital solutions to facilitate small famers’ access to markets and to financial and non-financial services in Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Mexico.

A US$ 1.07 million grant agreement between IFAD and the Government of the Federal Republic of Somalia will finance the Resilience Livelihood Action to COVID-19 project (RLAC-19)—a move to strengthen the ability of poor rural people to cope with the effects of the COVID pandemic and threats to their livelihoods.

This year’s COVID-19 lockdowns cut off Djibouti’s fishing community from their markets. But with no way to store fish in the searing heat, many fishers were forced to throw their catch away. Now, thanks to some solar-powered fridges, they’re back on their feet and trading with new customers.

Brazil’s São Francisco river is a place of convergences. The river delta, and the stunning tropical forest surrounding it, is home to many different ethnic groups who settled there in search of a fresh start. Plans for a new ecotourism route that would allow visitors to experience the area’s rich culture and traditions were well under way – and then the pandemic struck. Nevertheless, one IFAD-funded project managed to support the region’s artisans and fishers.

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.

IFAD has contributed a US$544,795 grant to alleviate the pressure of the COVID pandemic on the Syrian rural community.

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.

IFAD believes in the tremendous innovative capacity of rural youth – and we take seriously our responsibility to support young people in their constant search for change and innovation. That’s why this year’s Rural Youth Innovation Award in Latin America and the Caribbean, a project financed by the China-IFAD SSTC Facility, focused on initiatives led by young people fighting the pandemic.

IFAD’s Annual Report provides a concise, compelling and interactive discussion of how we addressed the challenges of the last year.

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?  

IFAD will provide much needed funding to assist 23,900 vulnerable rural people (4,780 households) in the Republic of South Sudan. The IFAD grant will help reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their farming activities and safeguard their livelihoods.

The Kenya National Farmers’ Federation is implementing a mobile information platform to serve its members and other Kenyan farmers.

In this episode, we bring you the latest on how small-scale farmers are dealing with the COVID-19 crisis.