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The end of COP26 is fast approaching, and we’re still waiting for a final agreement. However, based on the draft texts that have been released, it’s clear there’s still a risk of gaps between long-term targets and short-term action.

In recent years, saline intrusion – the encroachment of seawater into fresh water sources – has become a serious threat to small-scale farmers in Viet Nam’s Mekong Delta. Thanks to a public-private partnership, a local technology company was able to collaborate with an IFAD-supported project to create a lasting solution.

Agriculture is the main source of income and livelihood in rural Lao. But Lao crops are highly climate-sensitive, leaving farmers with little room for error when it comes to climate adaptation.

The start of the second week of the Glasgow Climate Change Conference marked a shift to a more political phase of the conference. Ministers arrived, former US President Barack Obama drew a crowd, and negotiations continued.

“Nature-based solutions” (NbS) might sound like a buzzword, but these techniques are some of the most effective tools in our arsenal against the effects of climate change.

As changing climates affect farming conditions across the world, how can geospatial and remote sensing tools help IFAD and others decide on where adaptation investments are best needed and what impact these interventions will have?

A new US$143 million investment programme will ensure millions of the most at-risk rural people living in the Sahel region of West Africa can adapt to climate change, with a wide-reaching plan to restore degraded land and provide climate information systems and agricultural insurance. The announcement was made today at the UN climate change conference (COP26) during a signing ceremony of the grant agreement between IFAD and the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

Sweden today signalled its strong commitment to help some of the world’s poorest small-scale farmers to adapt to climate change, by pledging SEK100 million (nearly US$11.7 million) to IFAD. The announcement was made at the UN climate change conference (COP26) in Glasgow.  

Nature-based solutions is a concept that highlights the fact that people can proactively protect, manage or restore natural ecosystems, while significantly contributing to addressing six major challenges: climate change, food security, water security, human health, disaster risk, and social and economic development.

The fisheries and aquaculture sectors fully or partially support the livelihoods of 10–12 per cent of the world’s population. Yet fisheries across the world are under threat from climate change and over-exploitation. The question of how best to manage fisheries under these conditions is a complex one, but in our experience, bringing communities into inclusive governance structures is an indispensable part of the solution.

IFAD Goodwill Ambassadors, Idris and Sabrina Elba attended COP26 to help ensure that African farmers are not left out of the climate conversation and to promote greater investments for small-scale farmers and producers to adapt to climate change.

We would like to invite you to our in-person media briefing on Saturday, 6 November at 11:00-11:30 GMT with IFAD and Conservation International on the importance of investing in small-scale agriculture, climate adaptation and nature-based solutions to achieve sustainable and prosperous food systems.

As climate negotiations enter a crucial phase, Idris and Sabrina Elba, UN Goodwill Ambassadors for IFAD, will attend COP26 to advocate for increased investments to help small-scale farmers to adapt to climate change and to protect biodiversity.

IFAD believes rural economies and food systems have the potential to become more resilient, sustainable, inclusive – and productive – all at the same time. But to get there, we need to focus our attention and support on the people who make these systems work.

Pastoralists and young rural entrepreneurs from six different Asian and African countries will be at COP26 in person to share their experiences in managing their ecosystems and to advocate for investments to stimulate green jobs and climate adaptation.

It’s the first day at the IFAD Pavilion at COP26 in Glasgow, United Kingdom, and we’ve come together with thousands of activists, world leaders and representatives of businesses and civil society from around the world to talk about the greatest challenge we face: how to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Between sowing their seeds and selling their harvest, smallholder farmers in developing countries face a multitude of potentially devastating risks. In Viet Nam, as in countries around the world, many of the most severe threats are climate-related, including storms, floods, excessive heat, frost and drought.

IFAD highlighted the impact of climate change on small-scale farmers at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change currently underway in Glasgow, UK, through a virtual visit to Bangladesh, where the country’s poorest small-scale farmers spoke about the projects and practices that are helping them adapt.

On one terrible day four years ago, Anjuli Rani Das’s life was swept away before her eyes. A flash flood engulfed her small duck farm, washing away everything she had worked for in the past years.

The Government of Honduras and IFAD, the UN agency for rural development, agreed today in Glasgow to work together to access Green Climate Fund (GCF) financing to promote small-scale climate-smart agriculture in the country.