Stories

Climate change poses a myriad of challenges for Argentina’s rural herders. But one woman has no intention of backing down and tells us how she plans to forge a new way forward.

Journalists can play an important role in telling the stories of Indigenous Peoples. Here are five ways in which the media can report on these important communities in a meaningful way.

Shepherds in Türkiye rely on the Taurus Mountains for their livelihoods - but living and working in these highlands is no mean feat. Here’s how IFAD-funded caravans have provided them with more comfortable, hygienic and safe living conditions. 

After 40 years working with rural people, here are some of the things we have learned to make our work under IFAD13 a success. 

The IPCC’s latest Synthesis Report is a reminder that the power is in our hands to prevent the very worst outcomes of climate change—if we take decisive and ambitious action now.

Climate change and a growing population are exacerbating water scarcity. As the water cycle is disrupted, farmers are coming up with inventive ways to harvest, store and use water. IFAD is helping them with simple but effective and climate-smart water infrastructure.

For over a month, Cyclone Freddy has been battering south-east Africa. This may be the longest-lasting tropical cyclone ever recorded—and vulnerable rural communities are in the eye of the storm. We explain what this means for IFAD’s project participants in the region.

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

The Nile Delta is the breadbasket of Egypt, but climate change threatens agriculture here. IFAD is working to protect the land and improve the quality of previously infertile land. Sabrina Dhowre Elba, IFAD colleagues, and project coordinators and participants describe how this is changing people’s lives.

18 million persons with disabilities are expected to be displaced by climatic events by 2050, we must urgently include them in climate action—both as participants and decision makers.

As the countdown clock to 2050 ticks ever louder, IFAD was at COP27 to share what we know about responding to climate change. Here are five solutions to help the world get back on track towards a more sustainable future.

In the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, a group of indigenous women are fighting climate change through reforestation and ancestral farming techniques.

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 finance is essential to prevent the worst-case climate scenarios from happening and to protect the most vulnerable people from a climate breakdown.

When it comes to climate change, small-scale farmers are among the world’s most vulnerable communities. This is why IFAD focuses on climate resilient agriculture and climate finance through programmes like ASAP+.

Climate change and environmental degradation are posing an unprecedented threat to the world. Find out how small-scale fishers are weathering the storm – and becoming part of the solution.

Discover how IFAD uses Geographic Information Systems to better understand where and how climate change is affecting smallholder farming, and what is needed to mitigate its effects.  

In Tajikistan two neighbouring towns face different fates as one suffers the aftermath of drought and displacement and the other is saved by irrigation.

Even when a world without poverty seems out of reach, here’s how IFAD continues to work in developing countries, amplifying the voices of rural people and integrating them into value chains, so they can earn and save, while feeding the world and conserving the natural environment. 

Irrigation brings water to the world's poorest rural people in the right quantities and when they need it, helping farmers adapt to climate pattern shifts.

East Africa is experiencing one of the worst droughts in decades, with millions facing food insecurity as crops fail, livestock die and water sources dry up. Read how IFAD is building resilience to climate change and what else needs to be done.

Coastal communities in the Philippines depend on the sea for sustenance, but these once thriving oceans are emptying due to climate change and harmful fishing practices. Local women are fighting back, protecting fisheries while using them sustainably.

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.

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.

Years of conflict in Yemen have taken their toll – and among all of the devastation that’s been wrought, the country’s agricultural sector is one of the hardest hit. Now, an IFAD-supported initiative is helping Yemeni farmers get back on their feet.

In June 1972, members of the United Nations gathered in Stockholm for the first-ever conference on protecting the environment. Fifty years later, global leaders are returning to where it all began to decide where we go from here.

Biodiversity is the key to all the essential benefits we get from nature: from clean air to our ability to regulate the climate. At IFAD, we integrate protecting biodiversity into everything we do.

Healthy ecosystems are diverse ecosystems. And at IFAD, we believe that small-scale farmers are amongst the greatest stewards and beneficiaries of biodiversity.

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.

The Great Green Wall was envisioned as a line of trees stretching across Africa to protect against desertification. Today, it is a mosaic of farms, forests, and wilderness, where sustainable agriculture is the norm and rural-dwellers thrive.