Recursos

To facilitate policy implementation at the country level, IFAD‟s Policy on Engagement with Indigenous Peoples (2009) recommended that Country Technical Notes be prepared to provide country-specific information on indigenous peoples, as well as to contribute to the development of country programme strategies and project design.

Sowing the seeds of success for farmers and microentrepreneurs.

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) can be a useful tool to measure the empowerment, agency and inclusion of women in the agriculture sector. However, computing the WEAI in its current form involves large data requirements, resulting in lengthy surveys with several questions on various dimensions and indicators within each dimension. This paper proposes a reduced version of the WEAI, or the R-WEAI, and examines two possible approaches to reduce the data requirements while ensuring comparability to the full WEAI.

Want to learn more about how you can design and implement  environment and climate activities within your projects?  Make sure you consult the e-learning modules on smallholder agriculture, environment and climate change.

Course benefits:

• Better understand the current challenges associated with environmental degradation and climate change, and particularly its impact on IFAD-funded projects and programmes and target groups;
• Outline the key elements of IFAD's approach to ENRM and climate change issues and of its related policies, strategies and procedures;
• Provide resources, best practices, case studies and tools that project practitioners can use to improve project outcomes;
• Share information on services and financial resources available to support IFAD's operations

 

 

In recent years, the purpose of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) has shifted from assessing the use of resources and the implementation of project activities, to measuring the contributions a project is making to specific development outcomes for both men and women. The aim of this course is to provide guidance on good practices in project-based monitoring and evaluation for IFAD-funded projects in the Asia and the Pacific region.

This course will help M&E officers develop a foundational understanding of the concepts and tools that are necessary to design an M&E system that embraces a gender-responsive approach within a Results Based Management framework. 

The goal of the course is to improve knowledge of the principles and tools that will increase staff capacity to apply a gender-sensitive and results-based approach to project monitoring and evaluation. 

There are three modules in this course:

1. The concepts and principles of an engendered Results Based Management approach to M&E
2. A core planning tool called the Logical Framework Approach 
3. Key planning approaches, tools and methods recommended for project monitoring and evaluation

It will take about five hours to complete the entire course.

This e-learning course was developed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) as part of the Asian Project Management Support Programme (APMAS).
 

Start the course

 

El Comité Directivo del Foro decidió que el empoderamiento económico de los pueblos indígenas, con especial atención a las mujeres y los jóvenes, debería ser el tema central de su tercera reunión mundial. 

Agriculture and fisheries, the backbone of food security and nutrition for coastal communities and globally, are under threat. 

Cash transfer and agricultural support programmes are both used to improve nutrition outcomes in developing countries. This paper examines previous reviews of the impact of these programmes and compares the evidence between the two. The paper finds that, although there are about the same number of programmes of each type, many more papers have been written about the cash transfer programmes than the agricultural programmes. While evidence suggests that both programme types improved the quality of food consumption, the paper concludes that both types show weak evidence of improvements in anthropometric outcomes.

The United Kingdom and IFAD are working closely together to meet Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 2: ending poverty and hunger by 2030. They have made a special commitment to boost inclusive and sustainable economic paths and create jobs in the poorest rural areas of the world, especially in Africa, where 10 to 12 million young people enter the labour market every year.

De los 450 000 millones de dólares estadounidenses que los trabajadores migrantes cada año envían a casa en los países en desarrollo, entre el 30% y el 40% se destina
a las zonas rurales. En el punto de partida de la cadena de la migración, las personas abandonan las zonas rurales para buscar oportunidades en otros lugares, ya que
carecen de ellas más cerca de su hogar. Las instituciones de microfinanciación (IMF) son insustituibles a la hora de atender las necesidades de los receptores de remesas
y reinvertir los fondos excedentes para mejorar las oportunidades de las comunidades locales.

This infographic illustrates the highlights of the 2017 Report on IFAD's Development Effectiveness (RIDE).

Durante los dos últimos decenios, la cooperación Sur-Sur ha ido ganando reconocimiento en cuanto marco general para la colaboración entre países en desarrollo (países del Sur Global) en una serie de ámbitos de índole política, económica, social, cultural, ambiental y técnica.

The Smallholder Dairy Commercialization Programme (SDCP) aimed to foster market-driven development of the informal dairy sector in Kenya. 

In Madagascar, the Project to Support Development in the Menabe and Melaky Regions (AD2M) aimed to improve the livelihoods of poor farmers by strengthening their tenure security and access to well-functioning irrigation systems.

Index insurance has a role to play in agricultural development and risk management, yet it faces operational and technical challenges to reach scale and sustainability. Data are a key challenge and were the focus of the project “Improving Agricultural Risk Management in Sub-Saharan Africa: Remote Sensing for Index Insurance”. Limited availability, accessibility, quantity and poor quality of data on the ground are some of the primary technical constraints preventing scale-up and sustainability of index insurance. Without sufficient quality data, either it is impossible to design products for some areas and countries, or products that are designed can become unreliable, not compensating when they should. These inconsistencies intensify vulnerability, lead to distrust of insurance, and ultimately have an impact on demand. This publication details the project, which investigated overcoming issues with ground data by using remote sensing data for index insurance. It describes the different remote sensing options and opportunities available for index insurance, but it also recommends further investment in research and development, supplementary ground data and capacity-building going forward. 

This study describes the shifting age and sex patterns of populations across rural and urban sectors in sub‑Saharan Africa from 1980 to 2015. It examines the relationship between the slowdown in urbanization and rural and urban age structure gaps, sex composition and dependency ratios. Findings show that rural-urban migration of young adults plays a key role in explaining dependency ratios and sex compositional gaps in rural and urban areas. Results also highlight the value of taking into account local age and sex structures to better prepare for the demographic dividend and other consequences of demographic shifts in sub-Saharan Africa.

Established in 2005 as a permanent feature of the IFAD Governing Council, the Farmers’ Forum (FAFO) is a bottom-up process of consultation and dialogue between IFAD, governments and farmers’ organizations that represent millions of small-scale farmers, fisher folk and pastoralists, both men and women, across the world. The forum aims to strengthen partnership and collaboration between IFAD and farmers’ organizations in country programmes and investment projects and to build capacity within these organizations. In support of the Farmers’ Forum, projects are established to strengthen farmers’ organizations and activities in the field. Thus, IFAD, together with several other donors (EU, SDC, AFD), has engaged into partnership with FOs through continental grants in Asia with the Medium-term Cooperation Programme with Farmers’ Organizations in Asia and
the Pacific (MTCP) as well as in Africa with the Support to Farmers’ Organizations in Africa Programme (SFOAP).

The MilkIT research for development project set out to improve dairy-centred livelihoods in India and Tanzania through intensification of smallholder
production focused on enhancement of feeds and feeding using innovation platforms and value chain approaches.

The project worked in the state of Uttarakhand in India and in Morogoro and Tanga regions in Tanzania. In both countries dairy has considerable potential to improve the livelihoods and nutrition of poor farming families but this potential has been underexploited. MilkIT focused on improving milk productivity through multistakeholder engagement to increase milk marketing and dairy cow feeding.

A lo largo de los últimos 25 años, la República Dominicana ha registrado una de las tasas de crecimiento más elevadas de América Latina y el Caribe. La construcción, el sector manufacturero y el turismo han sido los motores del crecimiento más reciente.
A pesar

Brazil is a major agricultural and industrial power, has the strongest economy in Latin America and the Caribbean, and is the seventh-largest economy in the world. It is the fourth-largest agricultural producing country, the main producer of coffee, sugarcane and citrus, and the second largest soybean, beef and poultry producer.

México es la segunda gran economía de América Latina. A pesar de ser un país grande y de renta media alta, México continúa teniendo altos niveles de pobreza rural y grandes desigualdades sociales y económicas. Aun cuando alrededor del 21 % de la población vive en áreas rurales, apenas representa dos tercios de la población en pobreza extrema.

L’accès des agriculteurs à l’eau est un facteur de développement agricole. Cet accès dépend de plusieurs facteurs, dont des facteurs économiques, politiques, ou encore environnementaux. En effet, les décisions et stratégies adoptées par le gouvernement et les autorités locales permettent à la population, et plus particulièrement aux agriculteurs, de gérer de façon durable et efficace leurs ressources hydriques.

À Madagascar, le cadre législatif du secteur de l’eau agricole a évolué à partir des années 1980. Tout d’abord, en 1990, la reconnaissance de l’importance de la préservation de l’environnement et des ressources naturelles a débouché sur une Charte de l’environnement.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) were both created in response to the food crises of the 1970s. We have worked together for more than 20 years to catalyze agricultural and rural development and improve food security in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

IFAD and IFPRI have strengthened the productivity and resilience of smallholder farmers and other rural people, with a particular focus on helping expand their access to innovative local farming methods, climate change mitigation and adaptation technologies and financing, and more profitable markets.

To further promote rural development and transformation, IFAD and IFPRI have built cutting-edge information systems and tools that deliver sound data and analyses to governments, donors, farmer organizations, and other stakeholders. As a result, the two organizations have fostered evidence-based policy making and investments that promote agricultural growth and rural development.

La edición de este año de El estado de la seguridad alimentaria y la nutrición en el mundo marca el inicio de una nueva era en el seguimiento de los progresos relacionados con la consecución de un mundo sin hambre ni malnutrición, en el marco de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS). En concreto, en el presente informe se hace un seguimiento de los avances logrados en la erradicación del hambre y la malnutrición en todas sus formas.

En el documento se incluye también un análisis temático de la forma en que la seguridad alimentaria y la nutrición se relacionan con los avances en la consecución de otras metas de los ODS. Ampliar la cobertura temática para incluir la nutrición ha supuesto que en la edición de este año el Fondo de las Naciones Unidas para la Infancia (UNICEF) y la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) se incorporen a la colaboración que la FAO, el FIDA y el PMA vienen manteniendo desde hace años para elaborar este informe anual.

Esperamos que la ampliación de la colaboración resulte en una comprensión más detallada y completa de lo que será necesario hacer para terminar con el hambre y todas las formas de malnutrición, y en medidas más integradas para lograr este objetivo fundamental. 

Gender equality and the empowerment of women are prerequisites for the eradication of poverty and hunger. First and foremost, gender inequalities and discrimination represent fundamental violations of the human rights of women. In addition, it is well recognized that gender inequality and discrimination undermine agricultural productivity globally,1 negatively impact children’s health and nutrition, and erode outcomes across social and economic development indicators.

Much work on rural women’s empowerment has focused on the need to expand women’s access to productive resources, which can allow them to increase their productivity. However, much more attention needs to be directed at underlying gender inequalities such as gender-biased institutions, social norms, and customs that negatively impact women’s work (paid and unpaid), livelihoods and well-being. Within food systems, these biases manifest themselves in limiting women’s access to productive resources, to services (such as finance and training), to commercial opportunities and social protection (including maternity protection). These manifestations may be regarded as symptoms, therefore, rather than drivers, of gender inequality.

 

Climate change and malnutrition are among the greatest problems in the twentyfirst century; they are “wicked problems”, difficult to describe, with multiple causes, and no single solution.

La Oficina de Auditoría y Supervisión (AUO) y su Sección de Investigaciones (IS) desempeñaron un papel fundamental en la defensa de la postura del FIDA de no tolerar ningún caso de corrupción, fraude o conducta indebida en 2016. La AUO atendió de manera oportuna y eficaz las presuntas irregularidades al haber concluido las investigaciones relativas a 56 denuncias durante el año (cifra muy superior a las de años anteriores) y la conclusión generalmente rápida y eficaz de los distintos asuntos. 

La sensibilización sobre la lucha contra la corrupción se intensificó gracias a la participación de la AUO en actividades regionales y de otra índole, la puesta en marcha de un módulo piloto de aprendizaje en línea sobre la lucha contra la corrupción, la celebración del Día Internacional contra la Corrupción y la mayor coordinación con la División de Servicios de Gestión Financiera (FMD), la Oficina de Ética y el Departamento de Administración de Programas (PMD). Se mejoraron los procesos de investigación y sanción mediante el uso de procedimientos revisados y se fortaleció la capacidad de investigación de la AUO con nuevos instrumentos forenses y el uso de entornos físicos e informáticos separados.

En Argentina, el FIDA contribuye a reducir la pobreza rural invirtiendo en pequeñas organizaciones de productores y comunidades indígenas, para aumentar sus ingresos.
La estrategia del programa para el país (2016-2021) se basa en las prioridades nacionales y tiene tres objetivos centrados en los ingresos y las oportunidades estratégicas; el capital humano y social; y el desarrollo institucional.
La estrategia enfatiza el papel central que las organizaciones de productores y comunitarias desempeñan en los procesos de transformación rural.

Las actividades clave incluyen:
• fortalecer la sostenibilidad económica de las familias y las organizaciones mediante la mejora y diversificación de las actividades productivas, construyendo la capacidad de resiliencia, incrementando su poder de negociación en las cadenas de valor,
y promoviendo buenas prácticas nutricionales;
• fortalecer la capacidad de las personas y organizaciones rurales pobres mediante el mejoramiento de su capacidad de gestión, su condición socioeconómica y su capacidad para entablar un diálogo con el sector público;
• fortalecer la capacidad de las instituciones gubernamentales para apoyar el desarrollo rural.

En esta guía práctica se proporciona orientación para abordar la focalización, la igualdad de género y el empoderamiento de la mujer en el contexto del ciclo de diseño de los proyectos del FIDA, desde el trabajo preparatorio inicial hasta la misión de diseño y la redacción del informe.

This issue presents and analyses experiences from the following IFAD-funded projects and programmes:
Ethiopia: Pastoral Community Development Project; Nepal: Leasehold Forestry and Livestock Programme; Palestine: Participatory Natural Resource Management Programme; Peru: Project for Strengthening Assets, Markets and Rural Development in the Northern Highlands (Sierra Norte); Sierra Leone: Rehabilitation and Community-based Poverty Reduction Project

The Rules of Procedures of the Executive Board were adopted by the Executive Board at its First Session on 14 December 1977. The Executive Board amended rules 1, 2.2, 12.4,14, 18, 19.1, 20.3, 23 and 24 of the Rules of Procedure at its Fifty-Fourth Session on 13 April 1995. These amendments entered into force on 20 February 1997. The Executive Board at its Ninety-Eighth Session in December 2009 introduced a new rule 24. As a result of this amendment, rules 24 through 28 have been renumbered as 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29. The Executive Board at its 119th Session in December 2016 amended rule 7 and incorporated an annex to the Rules of Procedure in order to adopt the Principles of Conduct for Representatives on the Executive Board of IFAD. The amendment and annex entered into force upon approval by the Executive Board.

El FIDA tiene un mandato sin parangón y cuenta con una experiencia incomparable de trabajo en zonas remotas a las que otros no van y donde la pobreza está más arraigada.

This paper describes the Participatory Impact Assessment and Learning Approach (PIALA) which was developed and piloted by IFAD. The approach aims to produce rigorous qualitative and quantitative evidence that can be used not only to identify and assess the impacts of development projects, but also to promote learning and improved understanding of the associated processes and pathways of socio-economic change. Illustrated with cases from Viet Nam and Ghana, the paper assesses the value of the approach for collaborative learning and reporting for IFAD’s country programming and global policy engagement, as well as for the wider development community.

With Fostering Agricultural Revitalization in Myanmar (FARM), the first project it has financed in Myanmar, IFAD is scaling up the best parts of regional and global projects, both its own and those of other organizations. For example, FARM has introduced a new method to complement pre-existing extension services.

This is benefiting both farmers and landless microentrepreneurs across the project area. At the heart of FARM’s innovation is the establishment of Knowledge Centres (KCs). Built on the structure and network of public extension services, the KCs are staffed by a ministry extension worker – the KC Manager. The KC Manager brings together farmers and microentrepreneurs in common interest groups, and helps them make the most of newly available extension services.

Investing in inclusive and sustainable rural transformation is strategically important for the 2030 Agenda. This has been broadly recognized in debates about the SDGs, particularly the roles of sustainable agriculture, food security and nutrition in relation to SDG2, the eradication of hunger. It is important to recognize that the eradication of hunger is inseparable from the eradication of poverty in all its forms (SDG1). 

While poverty is often the main driver of food insecurity and malnutrition, hunger and malnutrition also result in the inability to escape poverty. Investments targeted at rural people are needed not only to ensure no one is left behind, but also to unlock the catalytic role that inclusive rural transformation has been shown to play in reducing and eradicating poverty and hunger, as well as promoting wider prosperity. 

Remittances have increased in low-income and lower- middle-income countries in recent years, playing an important role as a stable source of finance at the macro-level, and in poverty reduction at the micro-level. 

Drawing on a critical review of the literature and econometric analyses based on cross-country panel data, this study examines the relationships among remittances, growth and poverty reduction in Asia and the Pacific and highlights policy implications to be considered by governments and policy-makers.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) emerged from the food crisis of the early 1970s and the World Food Conference of 1974. With financial support from Korea and other development partners, IFAD was created as both a specialized agency of the United Nations and an international financial institution. IFAD supports measures that help people in rural areas to overcome poverty and build better lives. Since its creation, FAD has helped about 464 million people to grow more food, better manage their land and other natural resources, learn new skills, start businesses, build strong organizations, and gain a voice in decisions that affect their lives.

Despite much progress – extreme poverty has been halved since the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted in 1990 – there are still 767 million extremely poor people in the world, and more than 75 per cent of them live in the rural areas of developing countries. Population increases and rising incomes are creating a growing demand for food, which creates both opportunities and challenges for people working in rural areas, including in smallholder agriculture and in the non-farm economy. Rising agricultural productivity, more jobs off the farm and migration are reshaping rural lives, but so too are climate change, environmental degradation, conflict and forced displacement.

IFAD’s experience in developing countries over the past 40 years clearly shows that investing in rural people leads to poverty reduction and economic growth that go beyond agriculture and rural areas. IFAD’s 2016 Rural Development Report presented evidence that inclusive and sustainable rural transformation is fundamental to economic and social growth, and to poverty reduction at the national level.

It is well recognized that with higher incomes and urbanization, patterns of demand for food change and expand – potentially creating new opportunities for food producers in many of today’s developing countries. It is not always equally well recognized that much of the urban expansion involves the growth of (often previously rural) towns, with these settlements retaining many of their rural characteristics. 

The continued prevalence of small-scale farming in local livelihoods – albeit increasingly buttressed by increasingly dynamic non-farm sectors – remains a feature of many of these so-called “urban” settlements. Notably, small towns and cities of less than 500,000 inhabitants now represent the largest share of the global urban population, with the majority of the projected urban growth in the decades ahead to be absorbed by these centres.

It is well recognized that with higher incomes and urbanization, patterns of demand for food change and expand – potentially creating new opportunities for food producers in many of today’s developing countries. It is not always equally well recognized that much of the urban expansion involves the growth of (often previously rural) towns, with these settlements retaining many of their rural characteristics.

Conozca mejor la labor del FIDA destinada a promover la transformación rural leyendo el Informe anual de 2016. Descubra cómo nuestras inversiones están empoderando a las mujeres y los hombres de las zonas rurales y examine los datos y las cifras que el FIDA comunica a sus Estados Miembros y asociados. También puede obtener más información sobre la labor de promoción que el FIDA lleva a cabo en nombre de las comunidades rurales de todo el mundo.

 

Hambrunas, conflictos, migración forzada, pobreza, hambre, desigualdades, sequías y cambio climático.

Para resolver los mayores problemas que afronta la humanidad, es necesario comenzar por las raíces: por las causas fundamentales, que son las más difíciles de modificar, y por las personas más desfavorecidas, que corren los mayores riesgos y a quienes resulta más difícil llegar.
Estas personas son los hombres y las mujeres que, a pesar de cultivar alimentos, pasan hambre: los pequeños agricultores familiares, los comerciantes, los jornaleros, los pescadores, los cazadores y los recolectores que, con demasiada frecuencia, permanecen al margen de las cadenas de valor modernas.

Durante cuatro decenios, solo una organización se ha especializado en llegar a esas personas. El Fondo Internacional de Desarrollo Agrícola (FIDA) es esa organización; un organismo de las Naciones Unidas y una institución financiera internacional, y la única organización dedicada exclusivamente a las zonas rurales.

Una organización centrada en las personas que lucha contra la pobreza y el hambre codo a codo con las familias y las comunidades. Un fondo que no solo ofrece asesoramiento y recomendaciones, sino que también cuenta con asociados, inversiones y planes a largo plazo dirigidos a alcanzar la sostenibilidad.
 

En 2015, los Estados Miembros de las Naciones Unidas hicieron un llamamiento a la acción para erradicar la pobreza a nivel mundial, reducir la desigualdad económica y poner el planeta en una senda más sostenible: la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible.

This paper investigates the trends and the influencing factors of IFAD’s project disbursement performance over the past 20 years. Based on data from 577 projects in 111 countries, the study finds that disbursement of funds are often delayed and time-consuming.

Using econometric analysis, the study assesses the internal and external factors affecting the amount and timeliness of disbursements, and provides important lessons on how international financial institutions such as IFAD can better monitor and manage this important aspect of their development effectiveness. 

Con el Día Internacional de las Remesas Familiares se reconocen los esfuerzos de millones de migrantes por mejorar las vidas de sus familias y construir un futuro con esperanza para sus hijos. Las remesas –el dinero que envían los migrantes a sus familias en sus lugares de origen– ayudan al sustento de 800 millones de personas y constituyen un importante factor de desarrollo. Aproximadamente el 40% de las remesas se envían a zonas rurales, donde se concentran la pobreza y el hambre.

To grow and lead productive lives we need good nutrition, and good nutrition starts from what we eat. Food systems have great potential to make diverse and nutritious food available and affordable to all. To do that, however, there is a need to strengthen the focus not only on how food is produced, but also how it is processed, distributed, marketed and delivered to consumers, the series of activities that together comprise a value chain (VC).

Describe el contexto y los beneficios de la focalización y la igualdad de género en el desarrollo rural y agrícola y la respuesta del FIDA en el plano normativo. 

The Integrated Approach Programme on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa targets agro-ecological systems where the need to enhance food security is directly linked to opportunities for generating local and global environmental benefits.

Investing in inclusive and sustainable rural transformation is strategically important for the 2030 Agenda. This has been broadly recognized in debates about the SDGs, particularly the roles of sustainable agriculture, food security and nutrition in relation to SDG2, the eradication of hunger. It is important to recognize that the eradication of hunger is inseparable from the eradication of poverty in all its forms (SDG1). While poverty is often the main driver of food insecurity and malnutrition, hunger and malnutrition also result in the inability to escape poverty. Investments targeted at rural people are needed not only to ensure no one is left behind, but also to unlock the catalytic role that inclusive rural transformation has been shown to play in reducing and eradicating poverty and hunger, as well as promoting wider prosperity.

En este informe se aportan datos y análisis relativos a la evolución de las remesas y la migración en los países en desarrollo durante el último decenio, además de la posible contribución de las familias que hacen uso de remesas al cumplimiento de los ODS de aquí a 2030.

The Global Forum on Remittances, Investment and Development (GFRID) is part of a series of ground-breaking and inclusive international forums hosted by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations and an international financing institution (IFI), in collaboration with key development organizations and other IFIs. Over the last decade, these Forums have brought together stakeholders across all sectors and from around the world involved in the field of remittances, migration  and development.

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa experience losses equivalent to 30- 40 per cent of total yields due to pests that attack their crops.

They need help to diagnose the problem and identify practical, economic, feasible and environmentally safe measures to deal with them. 

The goal of this programme was to significantly increase the productivity of key crops and/or improve household incomes for smallholder farmers by establishing plant clinics and training plant doctors. 

Con motivo del Día Internacional de las Remesas Familiares,los días 15 y 16 de junio de 2017, se reunieron más de 350 especialistas de los sectores público y privado en la Sede de las Naciones Unidas en Nueva York para el quinto Foro Mundial sobre Remesas, Inversión y Desarrollo2. Los participantes tuvieron la ocasión de debatir sobre los desafíos y oportunidades en el mercado de las remesas, presentar enfoques innovadores y modelos empresariales eficaces. Los debates se estructuraron en torno a la importancia de las remesas y la inversión de los migrantes para lograr los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) de ahora a 2030.

The Integrated Approach Programme on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa targets agro-ecological systems where the need to enhance food security is directly linked to opportunities for generating local and global environmental benefits. 

The Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) has a mandate to increase economic and physical access to food for low-income Africans by providing technical assistance to the portfolio companies of the African Agriculture Fund (AAF). 

The AAF is a private equity fund created in response to the food security challenge across the continent, financed by African, European and US development finance institutions, and private investors. It is comprised of two funds; the AAF and a subsidiary Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Fund. As TAF enters its fifth year, this report reflects on the progress of 42 projects implemented to date through technical assistance to ten AAF portfolio companies. 

The participation of rural stakeholders is central to promoting inclusive, mutually beneficial and sustainable urbanization. Globally, most of the world’s poor and food-insecure people are still located in rural areas. Undernourishment continues to be concentrated among populations based in rural areas, although a growing number of poor people living in urban areas are affected. It is thus critical that rural people and their organizations participate in designing and implementing development policies and programmes that have an impact on rural-urban linkages − for example in food
security, territorial development, urban food planning, natural resource management or infrastructure.

Approaches and experiences in five countries from East and Southern Africa.

Graduation out of chronic poverty has recently been receiving considerable attention by the global development community for its potential synergies with social protection, microfinance and livelihoods development approaches to poverty reduction. 

This paper examines the evidence regarding the effectiveness of graduation strategies in reducing extreme poverty, with a focus on rural households, and proposes a new analytical framework to support future work on graduation as a learning and adaptation process in development practice.

Project Completion Reports (PCRs) are a critical tool for development organizations, both for accountability purposes, and as a means of learning from project experience to inform the design of future operations. This paper analyses a sample of PCRs from IFAD to assess the extent to which evidence is used to determine a project's effectiveness in bringing about development. 

The report finds that most claims on results are not supported by evidence, and discusses implications for the objective measurement of development effectiveness.

Gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls is a pre-condition for the eradication of poverty and essential to achieve progress across all goals and targets set by the Sustainable Development Agenda. The JP RWEE facilitates transformation through rural women’s leadership, making gender equality and women’s empowerment a reality. Support to women's economic empowerment allows for increased influence, education and information for women to decide the use of their income, savings and loans, and the ability to make decisions about their life. 

Typically, IFAD’s approach to policy engagement is one of facilitating, supporting and informing nationally-owned policy processes, so as to enable governments and other national stakeholders to determine themselves the policy change required. 

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is often overlooked as a source of water supply. Yet it holds great potential to address the ever-increasing shortages of water globally. The huge potential of RWH for multiple-use services, such as food production, soil and water conservation and water, sanitation and hygiene, has not been adequately recognized, and certainly not implemented, as a solution for water problems on a wider and larger scale.

 

RWH initiatives are still too scattered and the lessons and results not shared. Policies, legal regulations and government budgets often do not include RWH in integrated water resource management and poverty reduction strategies.

 Un decenio de asociación del FIDA con los pueblos indígenas En los últimos diez años ha aumentado considerablemente el reconocimiento formal de los derechos de los pueblos indígenas, reconocimiento que se inicia en 2007 con la aprobación por la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas de la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas. Con más de 30 años de experiencia en la colaboración con pueblos indígenas, el FIDA empodera a las comunidades para que participen plenamente en la definición de estrategias en favor de su desarrollo y para que persigan sus propios objetivos y aspiraciones. A lo largo del último decenio, el FIDA ha apoyado a los pueblos indígenas para que tomen el control de sus propias iniciativas de desarrollo.

La presente publicación trata la actuación del FIDA en relación con los pueblos indígenas a través de las voces y los puntos de vistas de quienes han colaborado en este proceso de cambio. En consonancia con el enfoque de la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible, con la que se pretende asegurar que nadie se quede atrás, en el Marco Estratégico del FIDA (2016-2025) se reafirma el compromiso del Fondo con el desarrollo autónomo de los pueblos indígenas. Las citas e imágenes que aquí se presentan proceden de la tercera reunión mundial del Foro de los Pueblos Indígenas en el FIDA, que tuvo lugar del 10 al 13 de febrero de 2017.

A recent study by the National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC)1 of Mozambique suggests that within ten years the impact of climate change will be increasingly felt within the Limpopo Corridor. The soil moisture content before the onset of the rains is set to decrease and higher temperatures and droughts are expected to increase in the southern region.

The goal of PROSUL is to improve the livelihoods and climate resilience of smallholder farmers in selected districts of the Maputo and Limpopo Corridors.

The programme, referred to as the Strengthening Rural Institutions (SRI) project, was implemented by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Eastern and Southern Africa Region from 2011 to 2014. The project aimed to bring about a sustainable rural transformation process by strengthening the “institutional infrastructure” for integrated natural resource management, food security and poverty alleviation in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. 

The project’s main goal was to support grassroots organizations to meaningfully participate in governance processes where their livelihoods and well-being, and the environment, are at stake, with an emphasis on enabling poor rural households to aggregate, mobilize and access rural services.

The goal of this programme was to develop spate irrigation policies and programmes, based on action research and documented practical experiences, that contribute to rural poverty alleviation and accelerated economic growth in marginal areas in Ethiopia, Pakistan, Sudan and Yemen. 

Specific objectives:  1. Strengthen networks in the four countries. 2. Prepare country policy notes. 3. Implement two innovative action research activities per country that can be scaled up. 4. Further develop knowledge, including in local languages, and open-source knowledge-sharing. 5. Train four international MSc students. 6. Incorporate spate irrigation into programmes of universities and agricultural colleges in the four target countries. 7. Create a global inventory of spate irrigation and flood-based farming systems. 8. Provide technical backstopping to IFAD projects and country programmes.

This paper analyses how food safety challenges and requirements affect smallholder farmers' access to markets. High food safety standards in destination countries force governments of developing countries to make strategic choices about establishing domestic standards and upgrading the infrastructure and knowledge base of smallholder farmers.

The paper suggests mechanisms that can be used to respond to these challenges, to enable smallholder inclusion in different markets.

This publication presents IFAD’s first glossary of terms related to gender issues.

This issue presents and analyses experiences from the following IFAD-funded projects and programmes:

Brazil: Sustainable Development Project for Agrarian Reform; Settlements in the Semi-arid North-east (Dom Hélder Câmara Project);

China: South Gansu Poverty Reduction Programme;

Ghana: Rural Enterprises Programme; Morocco: Rural Development Project in the Mountain Zones of Al-Haouz Province; 

Uganda: Vegetable Oil Development Project.

The goal of this grant was to provide best business case options to producers and consumers to recover nutrients, water and energy from agricultural and domestic wastes for food security and food safety. The project sought to identify innovative market-driven and scalable approaches to enhance the sustainability of agricultural production considering environmental and health requirements of immediate users and end-consumers. 

The development challenges were to: 1. identify and share pathways with relevant stakeholders to make business cases more replicable, scalable and sustainable; 2. strengthen national, regional and local stakeholder platforms (from agricultural and/or sanitation sectors) by extending their interest in knowledge of safe reuse as a business; 3. formulate initiatives from donors, government departments and/or the private sector in order to incorporate project results. 

The programme’s goals were to increase the food security of smallholder farm households in southern Africa and enhance their livelihoods while conserving and improving the natural resources used for agriculture.

The focus of the programme was on developing productive farming systems for smallholder farmers who managed maize-based systems, based on the principles of conservation agriculture (CA): increasing the profitability, sustainability and labour efficiency of agricultural production.

Historically, pastoralists have been marginalized, and policies have been geared towards encouraging, and in some instances forcing, their settlement and sedentarization. Misunderstanding of their livelihoods has also led to abandonment of their customary institutions and practices. However, scientific evidence shows that mobile pastoralism is the most sustainable way of using marginal lands (such as arid, cold and mountain areas). The project goal was “to develop sustainable land management and resilient livelihoods in rangeland environments”. 

The objective of the project was to develop knowledge and build capacity for pastoral advocacy, create opportunity for pastoral advocacy and engage directly in policy dialogue, in order to promote policies and investments for sustainable management of rangeland environments and pastoral livelihoods. A significant aspect of the project was strengthening networking and building a global movement on sustainable pastoralism; this relied on the credibility and recognition of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a science-based intergovernmental organization.

This programme set out to empower 35,000 vulnerable women and men in rural value chains directly and another 65,000 indirectly through direct and peer capacity-building and action learning to negotiate a better position in value chains and achieve sustainable and equitable “win-win” collaboration between value chain stakeholders. 

The programme aimed to adapt and integrate participatory action learning methodologies into the policies and practices of at least 10 civil society organizations (CSOs) and to disseminate them through e-forums and capacity- building events then to be taken up by other relevant IFAD and Oxfam projects, in countries such as Ghana, India and Sierra Leone. Knowledge institutes also contributed to participatory planning and gender mainstreaming in value chain research and training.

This is the first issue of the Journal of Law and Rural Development, published by IFAD. IFAD’s mandate to address rural poverty and promote rural development is unique among international organizations. For many years IFAD limited its activities to financing projects and programmes implemented by its Member States, but over the last decade it has begun to transform itself into a knowledge centre and a key participant in the international policy dialogue around rural development issues. The launch of this journal is another step forward in this transformation.

This paper provides an overview of concepts, issues and research on the relationship between financial inclusion and inclusive rural transformation.

It demonstrates how changing demand for financial services, innovations in rural finance, and different investment strategies affect the interplay of supply and demand.

This paper analyses how different types of social protection interventions affect rural livelihoods. It examines how these interventions can help rural transformation by increasing productivity and asks how they can influence inclusiveness.

Using country-level evidence, it suggests that the effectiveness of social protection depends upon specific contexts and combinations of interventions, and asks what this means for building policy. 

This Household Mentoring handbook is a tool to assist household mentors to mentor selected poorer households.

IFAD’s support to the Nigerian Government’s poverty reduction programme in rural areas targets large numbers of smallholder farmers and is essentially people-centred. IFAD supports programmes and projects that work with communities, and with smallholder farmers as the key players.

During the period covered by the project, the landscape of global microfinance was deeply modified and “the game has changed”. On the one hand, the saturation of the market has led to over-indebtedness of very poor clients, scandals and systemic crises that have swept the whole sector in some prominent countries. On the other hand, it has been difficult for the industry to demonstrate tangible impact and, therefore, show that it has delivered against its promises of lifting hundreds of millions of very poor people out of poverty.

In this challenging context, the project aimed to help unlock the economic potential in sub-Saharan Africa, by promoting the growth of existing financial intermediaries that serve rural areas (rural financial institutions, RFIs) so that local entrepreneurs could take advantage of new opportunities to be more productive and more competitive, and improve their living conditions sustainably.

The purpose of this guide is to provide some generic steps and principles to be followed when setting up institutional arrangements for the management and implementation of IFAD projects.

The goal of the grant was to develop home-based production of charcoal from cooking with firewood into a new livelihood opportunity – and thus create a sustainable value chain for the economic empowerment of poor rural women.

Women from poor rural households in Ethiopia, India and Tanzania were trained to put out fires when they had finished cooking in order to prevent smouldering, and to collect household charcoal through collection clusters, process it into briquettes and market the output through innovative partnership-based enterprises.

Transparent performance reporting is a key requirement for effective resultsbased management of IFAD rural finance interventions. Better reporting, tracking and management have benefits throughout the entire IFAD project cycle, from design to implementation and learning from performance data, and for actors at different levels: partner financial service providers (FSPs); programme coordination units (PCUs); government policymakers; and IFAD decision makers and managers.

The goal of this initiative was to contribute to establishing an inclusive financial system that meets the needs of the rural poor by supporting the growth of healthy microfinance markets and microfinance service providers. Underpinning this goal is the notion that timely and credible information is critical to the functioning of markets.

The programme supported innovation funds working directly with communities to scale up approaches in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Uganda and Viet Nam.

La estrategia del FIDA en Nicaragua apoya las actividades de las organizaciones de agricultores y del Gobierno orientadas a impulsar el crecimiento inclusivo del sector agropecuario como medio para reducir la pobreza, generar empleo y mejorar el consumo de alimentos de las familias, además de contribuir a la sostenibilidad y la reproducción de las buenas prácticas. Los objetivos estratégicos se centran en los siguientes aspectos:
• La inclusión. Facilitar el acceso a los activos, los mercados y las actividades generadoras de ingresos, además de aumentar las oportunidades de empleo.
• La productividad. Incrementar la productividad de la mano de obra mediante incentivos que faciliten el acceso a la información, las tecnologías y los servicios técnicos y financieros.
• La sostenibilidad. Mejorar la sostenibilidad ambiental, fiscal e institucional.

Ethiopia is the second most populated African country with an estimated 96.9 million citizens. Of the total population, 81 per cent are classified as rural. The population is also growing at a rate of around 3 per cent per year. Whilst extreme poverty is declining, it is still widespread and in 2011 was counted at 30 per cent. 

Malawi is a densely populated landlocked country with a population of 17.7 million. Its population growth is about three per cent per year, and it has one of lowest GDPs in the world, with a human development index (HDI) ranking of 174 out of 187 countries. Many Malawians (51 per cent) live below the poverty line of US$1 per day, and this poverty incidence is mainly rural (85 per cent). Endemic poverty has also led to chronic food insecurity and malnutrition for 2.8 million Malawians, combined with HIV/AIDs prevalence of nearly 12 per cent.  

This paper seeks to answer three main questions: (i) What are fragile states and situations and how do they relate to issues of inclusive
structural and rural transformation? (ii) In three selected case studies of diverse fragile situations (in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Haiti and the Republic of the Sudan – drawing on IFAD financed programme and country experience), what have been the key elements of structural and rural transformation and to what extent has rural transformation been inclusive? (iii) In these cases, how does fragility affect the inclusiveness of rural transformation? Which policies and approaches can successfully promote inclusive rural transformation in
fragile situations?

The IFAD Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility (IPAF) is an innovative funding resource that indigenous communities can access to support their own solutions to development challenges. It supports self-driven development by investing in small projects that build on indigenous peoples’ culture, identity, knowledge, natural resources and income-generating activities. The goal of the IPAF programme is to empower indigenous peoples’ communities and their organizations in Asia and the Pacific to foster their self- driven development. 

​IFAD Investments have opportunities for improving food security and nutrition outcomes. In 2016 ESA conducted a mapping exercise on nutrition sensitive interventions to provide insight for an effective nutrition mainstreaming and operations at project level.

Why is FO mapping and profiling essential? 

A business model is a means by which a farmers’ organization (FO) structures its resources, services and collaboration with members, stakeholders (traders, suppliers, public and private sector), clients and partners to create and capture value. 

​Smallholder farmers use different strategies to improve their market presence and to capture more value added in the agricultural sector. These strategies include the creation of cooperatives and other farmers’ organizations (FOs).

This “Lessons Learned” document of the conservation agriculture (CA) in sub-Saharan Africa toolkit reviews experiences over the last two decades.

Conservation agriculture (CA) in sub-Saharan Africa has multiple, but often very specific, niches for investment that need to be understood to support its inclusion and implementation in projects.

This “How To Do” note offers guidance on the design, implementation and scaling up of a CA programme or project in sub-Saharan Africa. It begins with a summary of the key issues and associated questions  and follows this with lessons gained from experience.

​Smallholder farmers use different strategies to improve their market presence and to capture more value added in the agricultural sector. These strategies include the creation of cooperatives and other farmers’ organizations (FOs).

The business plan of an FO is a document providing information on how the FO intends to organize and implement activities so that it is profitable and can succeed. It is an essential tool for the planning, managing and running of a business. It clarifies the operational and financial objectives of a business and contains the detailed plans and budgets showing how the objectives are to be achieved. It may also contain background information about the organization that is attempting to reach those goals.

IFAD is unique in being both an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency. It is also unique in mandate – the only institution exclusively dedicated to eradicating hunger and poverty in rural areas of developing countries. IFAD provides low-interest loans and grants to developing countries to finance innovative agricultural and rural development programmes and projects, and is among the top multilateral institutions working in agriculture in Africa. The decision to create IFAD was made in 1974, in the wake of the great droughts and famines that struck Africa and Asia in the preceding years. At the 1974 World Food Conference, world leaders agreed that “an international fund … should be established immediately to finance agricultural development projects”.

This paper examines the impact of IFAD-supported projects so as to learn lessons for future projects. It analyses the different methods used by IFAD to measure a project's impact, finds that IFAD is improving the well-being of rural people, and recommends that impact assessments be built into future projects from their inception.

The purpose of this study is to map nutrition-sensitive interventions in IFAD-funded projects in the ESA region, and to provide guidance for effective nutrition mainstreaming operations. 

The specific objectives are to: 

(1) map the various interventions used in delivering nutrition-sensitive activities; 

(2) identify pathways for nutrition outcomes; 

(3) evaluate the scale and scope of intervention implementation; 

(4) assess the effect of the project on beneficiaries; 

(5) identify and map areas of opportunities for scaling up; 

and (6) identify challenges, weaknesses and gaps.