Stories

Rural women are just as enterprising as their male counterparts, if given equal opportunity and tools. Through training and skills development, rural women can play a much greater role in the development of their communities and boost the local economy.

There are more than 370 million self-identified indigenous people in some 70 countries around the world. Worldwide, they account for 5 per cent of the population, but represent 15 per cent of those living in poverty.

Try the Recipe at home: Gak Ik (Turkey soup) - Guatemala

Try the recipe at home: Smoked fish with sesame and sorrel sauce - Chad

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is delighted to announce a new partnership with the UN Food Gardens initiative at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

There is a direct link between human development and water. This is especially true for rural communities where access to water is a necessity to undertake subsistence agricultural production and to attain a minimum health standard. 

Poor rural people in the Afghan provinces of Kabul, Parwan and Logar are feeding their families better and increasing their earnings by taking part in the IFAD-funded Community Livestock and Agriculture Project.

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is celebrated on 9 August. This year’s theme is indigenous peoples’ migration and movement. It is a special day to unite our voices and walk together towards social and environmental justice.

It was just after midday, on a hot and rainy day in May, that we met with Emmanuel Abaysenga outside of the facilities of the Nyanza Milk Industries. 

Family farmers in rural Bosnia and Herzegovina and Egypt have increased their incomes, production and skills by taking part in a project funded by an IFAD grant and implemented by Oxfam Italia. 

Afro-descendants are among the most vulnerable populations in Latin America, facing the region’s worst rates of inequality, violence and rural poverty. A recent IFAD-supported grant worked to challenge these trends, empowering Afro-descendants to exercise their rights, increase their incomes and achieve greater social inclusion.

In Guatemala, a cooperative of indigenous women is now exporting goods to international markets with the support of an IFAD grant. 

Roland’s workshop sits by the side of the road, a large wooden structure from which the sounds of a lathe and a hammer emerge from time to time. In the garden, two teenagers are stripping dried palm leaves into fibre, which a woman is wrapping around a knife handle. 

Talking about the roya (coffee rust) epidemic in El Airo, a rural community in southern Loja province in Ecuador, brings back bad memories to the minds of local coffee growers. In 2010 and 2011, this fungus devastated coffee plants all over the province, plunging  farming families into poverty and forcing many of them to leave.

The SDG2 Advocacy Hub is a consortium of NGOs, advocacy groups, civil society, private sector and UN agencies that collaborate on campaigns that help achieve SDG2 - to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent the broadest consensus ever reached by humanity regarding the kind of development we aspire to. They establish a minimum for our civilization regarding the opportunities and levels of well-being to which every human being is entitled, and define humanity’s obligations with respect to our planet and its future generations.

Should I stay or should I go? This question is likely on the mind of hundreds of thousands of young people in developing countries wondering what the future holds for them at home and dreaming of a better life abroad.

What is the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), media and digital technologies in empowering women and girls? Rural women make significant contributions to their communities in a variety of ways.

Saada and Jerard are two young half-siblings, who were reunited through agriculture. Jerard was raised by his father in Iringa, a transport-hub in central Tanzania. 

As thousands of farmers in central Tanzania battle with long spells of dry weather and erratic rainfall, with little hope of feeding their families, Juliana Yusuph is no longer worried.

“I’m using everything now,” says Samuel Gachau Kimani, showing off the biogas digester on his farm in Kirura, Kenya, north of Nairobi. 

Try the recipe at home: Licuri, chicken and rice – Brazil

Try the Recipe at home: Umbuzada sertaneja – Brazil 

No state wants to be defined as fragile. But J.J. Messner’s job as co-director of The Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index is to do just this. The Index tracks and assesses the performance of 178 countries on social, economic and political indicators to measure their fragility.