Recursos

IFAD recently resumed operations in Cuba after more than 20 years. The official launch of the Cooperative Rural Development Project in the Oriental Region (PRODECOR) took place on 30 October 2014.
Given the challenges the agricultural sector faces, IFAD is in a position to serve as one of the country’s strategic partners, contributing to the ongoing modernization process.
Cooperatives in Cuba are key actors in ensuring food security, as they represent 80 per cent of the country’s agricultural production. The Government of Cuba has expressed interest in re-establishing the partnership with IFAD with a view to modernizing agriculture.
This will be achieved mainly through developing non-state smallholder farmer business cooperatives. In this respect, IFAD is well placed to provide technical assistance through its projects to increase the physical, human, social and environmental assets of cooperatives.

Con una cobertura de telefonía móvil que por lo general se extiende a más del 90% de la población, incluso en los países en desarrollo, la posibilidad de realizar transacciones bancarias por medio de teléfonos móviles (lo que se conoce como “banca móvil”) abre la perspectiva de sortear muchos de los obstáculos con que actualmente se enfrentan los receptores de remesas de las zonas rurales.

When we look at the world today, we see impressive gains as well as daunting challenges. The Millennium Development Goal target of halving extreme poverty rates was met at the global level five years ahead of the 2015 deadline. There are now more than 100 middle-income countries, as diverse as Brazil, Lesotho and Vanuatu. It is estimated that developing countries’ share of the global middle-class population will rise from 55 per cent today to 78 per cent by 2025. 

However, amid rising affluence in some countries and regions, there is also growing inequality. In 2015, there will still be 970 million people living in poverty – the vast majority of them in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. And there remain 842 million chronically undernourished people in the world. Volatile commodity prices bring hunger to the poorest, and instability to markets and societies. Climate change and environmental degradation throw long shadows over all of humanity’s gains. Against this background, we must confront the question of how humankind is going to continue to feed and sustain itself in the future.

This new IFAD strategy responds to these global developments and calls for IFAD to be more systematic and proactive in engaging with the private sector.

The new strategy specifies how IFAD intends to deepen its engagement with the private sector (be it small, medium, or large; domestic, regional, or international companies) with the aim of creating markets for its target groups; improving their access to inputs, services, knowledge and technology; and increasing income-generating or job-creating opportunities for its target populations. For more information please click on the link below. 

This coming year could determine not only whether the world rises to the considerable challenges now facing it—climate change, persistent hunger, increasing inequality, stubborn poverty—but also affecting the fate of generations to come. With a growing population that will exceed 9 billion by 2050, the increasing effects of climate change, a widening gap between rich and poor, and growing competition for resources, the major issues facing humanity cannot wait. Deliberation must give way to deliberate action.

But the global political will to eradicate extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition within a generation, and the conviction that this is achievable, are growing. An ambitious agenda is emerging in the process of identifying post-2015 development goals. It aims to end poverty everywhere in all its forms, and to end hunger and achieve food security. And it plans to do so sustainably. This would perhaps be one of the greatest steps ever taken to secure the future of humanity and the life of the planet.

El FIDA ha obtenido importantes resultados en la promoción de enfoques y procesos innovadores de incorporación de la perspectiva de género y favorables a las personas pobres en sus operaciones. 

Three quarters of the poor population in West and Central Africa – about 90 million people – live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. More than 60 per cent of the active population work in the agriculture sector. Women’s share – estimated at 70 per cent in the region as a whole and 89 per cent in the Sahel – continues to rise. Socio-politically, West and Central Africa is still very fragile, with the highest concentration of countries with IFAD operations. Despite this fragility and the poverty that affects over half the population, virtually all countries in the region have made considerable progress over the past decade, particularly in education, health and income redistribution. 

In Tunisia, young women managed to set up their own small enterprises that produce and sell Al margoum, a traditional embroidery of Berber origin that was on the verge of disappearing.

In Djibouti, pastoral communities have made a clearimprovement in their living conditions with better access to water and strengthened capacity in natural resources conservationa and management.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a project co-sponsored by IFAD helped the war-ravaged country make the transition from immediate relief and rehabilitation to long-term sustainable development.

In Yemen, a community-led project for fostering women's empowerment has imporoved the food security of thousands of landless and smallholder famers living in the poorest areas of the country.  

From 2004 to late 2012, the Dhamar Participatory Rural Development Project, cofunded by IFAD and the Government of Yemen, addressed the needs of the rural population in the Dhamar Governorate.  By ensuring the participation of rural people in the decision-making processes and income-generating activities, the project improved the food security of substience farmers and their families in the villages of Dhamar.

In Syria, large areas of degraded land have been turned into arable land thanks to several IFAD projects that managed to combine the sheer power of bulldozers with the long-term commitment of farmers.

In Syria, a sanduq – a local microfinance institution owned and managed by its members – provides much needed loans to poor rural people, with particular attention to women.

In Somalia, much-needed sources of underground water were identified by using advanced geophysical surveys in those same areas where previous trial-and-error drilling had delivered no results.

In Armenia, Macedonia and Moldova, low-cost refinancing capital makes rural investments attractive and profitable for local banks, and reduces rural poverty by stimulating economic growth.

In Macedonia, IFAD trained individuals to become agricultural advisors and assisted them in establishing private companies that today operate in the market for agricultural development services.

In Jordan, the success of a project co-funded by IFAD largely rested on how quickly rural women were able to learn about borrowing money and setting up and running their own small enterprises.

A Holistic Approach to Farming Research In Egypt, land productivity was improved by an IFAD project that created strong links between farmers, research and extension, and raised resource-use efficiency by integrating crops and livestock. The governorates of Fayoum, Beni Sueif and Minia in Upper Egypt extend for about 200 km along the Nile. In this area, land productivity is low and the potential for bringing additional land into production is limited. The only options available to raise the incomes of rural people living in the area are to improve land productivity and intensify land use. This is what an IFAD project has done through a project consisting of three main elements: 1) agricultural research; 2) the dissemination of research findings through extension activity; and 3) the provision of credit necessary to adopt new technologies. The project established an innovative Farming System Research Unit (FSRU), which operated with a holistic approach. That is to say, the FSRU carried out research activities that were adapted to farmers’ real needs and closely linked to extension delivery, and broadened its focus to include livestock – a relatively neglected area in Egypt.

The primary objective of the project was to promote innovative approaches and ICT-based technologies for timely transfer of weather, water-and crop related information and advice to relevant end users in Africa for informed decision-making and enhanced negotiation capacity with water and farm-related service providers.

This policy reinforces IFAD’s position as a leader in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in agricultural and rural development. It builds on IFAD’s experience and achievements in field operations and in the broader policy arena in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. The policy will provide IFAD with strategic guidance in systematizing, intensifying and scaling up its efforts to close gender gaps and improve the economic and social status of rural women in rapidly changing rural environments. 

Ghana has the third largest IFAD country programme in the West and Central Africa region. The programme contributes to building inclusive and
sustainable institutions, backed by pro-poor investments and policies as well as relevant innovation and learning. IFAD supports the main thrusts of the government’s Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda – including accelerated agricultural modernization, sustainable natural resource
management and enhanced private-sector competitiveness. 

Its work also aligns with Ghana’s Medium Term Agriculture Sector Investment Plan on food security, income growth and other programme areas related to rural poverty reduction.

Somalia’s poverty and food security situation remains critical after years of conflict and natural disasters. Since the 1980s, IFAD has supported nine programmes in the country for a total of US$140 million.
There is currently no country strategic opportunities programme for Somalia.

However, the strategic objectives of IFAD interventions in Somalia can be summarized as follows:
• Increase incomes and food security by supporting agriculture and related activities, improving access to water, sanitation and health care, strengthening the natural resource base and building rural financial services;
• Identify and promote pro-poor investment mechanisms in rural areas for dissemination, replication and scaling up; and
• Build the capacity of the diaspora and promote the transformation of people in the diaspora into agents of development through remittances – the portion of their earnings that migrants outside the country send home.

The World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism (WISP) is a global knowledge and advocacy network that promotes understanding of sustainable pastoral development for both poverty reduction and sustainable environmental management. WISP was executed by the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN).

The Programme built the capacity of pastoral institutions to engage in advocacy based on state-of-the-art global learning on sustainable pastoralism, enabling pastoralist institutions around the world to network and shared experiences and opportunities, and ensured that the voice of pastoralists remained central to policy discourse and learning.

Land is fundamental to the lives of poor rural people. It is a source of food, shelter, income and social identity.

Secure access to land reduces vulnerability to hunger and poverty. But for many of the world’s poor rural people in developing countries, access is becoming more tenuous than ever. 

In 2013, IFAD commissioned a study to analyse project management arrangements for market‑oriented smallholder agriculture. As IFAD adapts to the changing development discourse, the organization has focused increasingly on improving Project Management Unit (PMU) arrangements in order to provide more effective and expanded management and technical skills. This review was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of PMUs and their alignment with the Paris Declaration principles, as well as to identify lessons or frameworks to guide future project management and implementation arrangements. It investigated five case studies drawn from different regions and types of projects.  

 IFAD has been working in small island developing states (SIDS) for 35 years, financing investments for smallholder farmers and fishers.

IFAD recognizes that small island developing states are different than other developing countries. 

They face constraints that are quite particular to their size, remoteness, insularity and ocean resource base. In the light of a changing world and new challenges faced by rural people living in SIDS, IFAD recently took the opportunity of the Global Conference on Small Island Developing States held in Samoa in 2014 to articulate its lessons learned and current approach to financing investment in rural people in its paper presented at the Conference, IFAD’s approach in Small Island Developing States.

The objective of the IFAD Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility (IPAF) is to strengthen indigenous peoples’ communities and their organizations by financing small projects that foster their self-driven development in the framework of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to generate lessons learned and approaches for replication and up-scaling.

The Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility (IPAF)1 finances small projects designed and implemented directly by indigenous peoples’ communities and their organizations. The projects are selected through global calls for proposals, based on a competitive process. In managing the IPAF when it was established in 2007, IFAD realized that the Facility was not only a grant-making mechanism, but it also contained a wealth of knowledge derived from the project proposals themselves. With its limited funding, the IPAF can support only a small number of these proposals. Thus, a knowledge-harvesting mechanism was set up with funding from the Initiative for Mainstreaming Innovation (IMI). 

El acceso equitativo a la tierra y la seguridad de la tenencia de los grupos objetivo del FIDA son fundamentales para el desarrollo rural y la erradicación de la pobreza. 

La producción ganadera en pequeña escala se basa principalmente en explotaciones familiares y es crucial para los medios de vida de las personas pobres de las zonas rurales, la seguridad alimentaria y la creación de empleo. Los animales proporcionan alimentos para el consumo familiar, productos para la generación de ingresos y dinero en efectivo que puede obtenerse rápidamente cuando se producen situaciones de emergencia y crisis externas (que pueden deberse a condiciones climáticas, casos de enfermedad, inestabilidad de los precios, etc.). Los animales son activos importantes que satisfacen diversas necesidades de los pequeños productores (proporcionan estiércol, fuerza de tiro y de carga, etc.) y tienen asimismo un valor cultural y espiritual. Las aves de corral y los pequeños rumiantes suelen estar a cargo de las mujeres y les proporcionan beneficios directos.

El FIDA, que hace más de cuatro decenios que lleva a cabo intervenciones relacionadas con los servicios financieros en las zonas rurales en más de 70 países y ya ha invertido USD 1 100 millones en iniciativas de ese tipo, tiene una gran y variada experiencia en esa esfera, una red mundial de asociados que trabajan en las innovaciones más avanzadas y cientos de proveedores distintos que atienden las necesidades financieras de los hogares pobres de las zonas rurales, que son sus clientes. Más de 3 000 millones de personas de las zonas rurales todavía viven con menos de USD 2 al día. Problemas como las crisis económicas, la carestía de alimentos y el cambio climático afectan a las personas pobres de una forma desproporcionada. Los hogares pobres de las zonas rurales suelen quedar excluidos de las posibilidades de operar en el sector financiero forma.

Procesos de ampliación de escala inteligentes en función del clima

La ventaja comparativa del FIDA reside en su experiencia en el trabajo a nivel de base, su comprensión de los obstáculos que afronta la población pobre en las zonas rurales, en particular los más vulnerables, y su capacidad de concebir enfoques integradores para el desarrollo económico y social. Un elemento fundamental del enfoque de desarrollo del FIDA consiste en la prestación de apoyo a las organizaciones de pequeños agricultores en zonas rurales como estrategia para el empoderamiento de la población rural pobre. Las organizaciones de pequeños agricultores sólidas e integradoras con un nutrido grupo de miembros son importantes asociadas de gobiernos, organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG), donantes y agentes del sector privado que buscan nuevos mercados.

Taller regional de América Latina y el Caribe en preparación de la segunda reunión mundial del Foro de Pueblos Indígenas en el FIDA.

Africa Regional Workshop in preparation for the Second Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum at IFAD.

This case study illustrates how the household approach for gender, HIV and AIDS mainstreaming has been used effectively in Malawi, highlighting how it has worked in a particular context. Links are provided to resources and online materials.

To address food security problems and soaring prices for basic commodities, in December 2008 the European Union launched a Food Facility totalling €1 billion spread over three years, from 2009 to 2011. Under this initiative, the regional programme IFAD-EU-ECOWAS Food Facility was established with a budget of €20 million. The regional programme covers a number of countries in West Africa.

To assure food security and protect the population from recurrent crises, countries dependent on foreign aid for much of their food supply, such as Benin, Mali, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, have designed strategies and programmes to support food security that are intended to increase food production through the intensification of strategic crops such as rice, cassava, yams and ground nuts, and widespread use of selected seeds and mineral fertilizers.

The Belgian Fund for Food Security (BFFS) was created by the Belgian Parliament in 1983 in response to the more than one million drought- and faminerelated deaths in East Africa. BFFS provides grants to pay for rural development projects, with a focus on food security and nutrition, in some of the poorest countries in Africa, helping extremely poor people to become healthier and more productive and lowering the risk that they will face starvation. 

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized United Nations agency, was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. It is dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries. Through low-interest loans and grants, it develops and finances programmes and projects that enable poor rural people to overcome poverty themselves.

What is the International Year of Family Farming? Small family farms are the key to reducing poverty and improving global food security. The United Nations declared 2014 the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) to recognize the importance of family farming in reducing poverty and improving global food security. The IYFF aims to promote new development policies, particularly at the national but also regional levels, that will help smallholder and family farmers eradicate hunger, reduce rural poverty and continue to play a major role in global food security through small-scale, sustainable agricultural production. 

The IYFF provides a unique opportunity to pave the way towards more inclusive and sustainable approaches to agricultural and rural development that: Recognize the importance of smallholder and family farmers for sustainable development; Place small-scale farming at the centre of national, regional and global agricultural, environmental and social policies; Elevate the role of smallholder farmers as agents for alleviating rural poverty and ensuring food security for all; as stewards who manage and protect natural resources; and as drivers of sustainable development.

This note highlights the lessons learned in supporting smallholder institutions and organizations. 

The Twa “Pygmy” of the Republic of Burundi are a small minority of around 80,000 people that self-identify as indigenous and are considered as such by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the UN system. 

This How To Do Note guides design and country teams in conducting an initial analysis of organizations and their capacity development needs at the project design stage. It provides a conceptual framework and practical suggestions and tools to help practitioners systematically collate and summarize information captured during design missions. 

El cambio climático pone en peligro la base de
recursos naturales de la mayor parte del mundo en
desarrollo, acelera la degradación de los ecosistemas y
convierte la agricultura en una actividad más arriesgada.
En consecuencia, los pequeños agricultores, que
desempeñan una función sumamente decisiva en la
seguridad alimentaria mundial, se enfrentan a un clima
cada vez más extremo. Los pequeños agricultores se
ven afectados de una forma más directa por las sequías,
las inundaciones y las tormentas, a la vez que sufren
los efectos paulatinos del cambio climático, como el
estrés hídrico en los cultivos y la ganadería, la erosión
costera debida al aumento del nivel del mar y la
imprevisibilidad de las infestaciones de plagas.

Under the 9th  Replenishment, IFAD committed to moving 80 million rural people out of poverty cumulative from 2010 onwards to 2015, and conducting 30 rigorous impact assessments. Hence the urgent need for appropriate methodologies for impact assessment. To respond to this need, a few piloting initiatives have been launched, one of which is the Improved Learning Initiative (ILI) 2. This  initiative  aims  to  develop  a  potentially  scalable  Participatory  Impact  Assessment  and Learning Approach (PIALA) that can help IFAD and its partners collaboratively assess, explain and debate its contributions to rural poverty impact. The PIALA design and piloting is funded by IFAD’s DFID-financed Innovation Mainstreaming Initiative (IMI) and BMGF’s Measurement, Learning and Evaluation Unit in the Agricultural Development Program; and with important contributions from IFAD’s Country Program Offices and partners in the pilot countries (Vietnam and Ghana), and its Strategy & Knowledge Management and Program Management Departments.

In February 2013, the First Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples Forum took place at the IFAD headquarters in Rome, in conjunction with the 36th session of the Governing Council. In attendance at this inaugural meeting were 31 indigenous people’s representatives from 25 countries in Asia, Pacific, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean regions. Of the 19 Asia- Pacific regional representatives, two were from the Pacific; Mr. Anthony Wale, the Executive Director Aoke Langalanga Constituency Apex Association (ALCAA), and Ms Rufina Peter, Senior Research Officer at the PNG Institute of National Affairs.

During the meeting the Pacific representatives highlighted the need for the Pacific to have a “separate identity” as per the outcomes of Asia Pacific regional preparatory workshop in Bangkok. The issue was one of visibility for the Pacific Region due to its unique, rich and diverse cultures and traditions, its significant land and sea area and its high biodiversity. The Pacific Regional meeting proposed three action plans, of which the Pacific Regional Workshop in preparation of the Second Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum at IFAD is a direct result.

This report proceeds from the Global Forum on Remittances held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2013.

This case study illustrates how the Chiefs and Traditional Leaders Household Methodology has been used effectively in Zambia, highlighting how it has worked in a particular context. Links are provided to resources and online materials.

This case study illustrates how Household Approach (household methodology) has been used effectively in Zambia, highlighting how it has worked in a particular context. Links are provided to resources and online materials.

The purpose of this Guide is to support institutional and organizational analysis and strengthening (IOA/S) for design and implementation of programmes and projects.
The Guide is designed to be a practical, hands-on set of directions to those needing to answer the following questions: “how to go about doing institutional and organizational analysis? And once I’ve done it, how do I go about using this analysis to promote sustainable institutions and organizations?”

This is intended as a user-friendly Guide, the use of which could help identify strategic partners and key areas for intervention at COSOP level; to deepen the COSOP analysis at the design stage by generating interventions that support sustainable institutions and organizations, and progress
at implementation stage should be easier to monitor and evaluate effectively. 

Since 1978, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has worked
with small-scale farmers in 122 countries and territories around the world to help
them overcome rural poverty and increase their food and nutrition security. IFAD
has invested a total of about US$15.6 billion in grants and low-interest loans to
developing countries, reaching more than 400 million people.
Agricultural development can be a major driver of poverty reduction. IFAD acts as
an advocate for poor rural people, helping to create an enabling environment – with
appropriate policies, know-how, finance, infrastructure and market access – for
them to improve their lives and livelihoods.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development works with small-scale farmers in 98 countries and territories around the world to help them overcome rural
poverty and increase food security. Since 1978, IFAD has invested over US$16 billion in grants and low-interest loans to projects that have reached more
than 430 million people.

Agricultural development can be a major driver of poverty reduction. IFAD acts as an advocate for poor rural people, helping to create an enabling
environment – with appropriate policies, know-how, finance, infrastructure and market access – for them to improve their lives and livelihoods.

The “Strengthening smallholder institutions and organizations toolkit” provides valuable guidance to help practitioners analyze and address issues related to smallholder institutions and organizations during the devopment of country strategies and in the design and implementation of programmes and projects.

El FIDA considera que los pequeños agricultores son más que meras víctimas del cambio climático: constituyen una parte fundamental de la solución de este problema “perverso” del cambio climático. 

Climate change and sustainable development are the central challenges of our time. They are inseparably linked and need to be addressed together. Action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to climate impacts is essential for ensuring sustainable development. At the same time, only sustainable development can provide the stable political, economic, social and environmental conditions that all countries need to address climate change successfully and
build carbon-neutral economies. This is why the UN system is fully committed to supporting the international community as it confronts climate change while working to build a sustainable world for the twenty-first century.

Natural resources (land, water, forests, fisheries) are fundamental to the survival of rural people. The livelihoods of most poor people depend on agriculture, which in turn hinges on the continued productiveness of the land and availability of water resources. Land and water, in addition to forests, offer the compendium of ecological goods and services that smallholders in developing countries need for their economic development; they can also provide a safety net in times of crisis. These resources are also global public goods. Natural resources need to be managed sustainably not only on smallholder farms and in individual sectors (e.g. selected sources of water or forest reserves) but in the totality of ecosystems that support their existence.

South-South and triangular cooperation (SSTC) has become an integral part of IFAD’s support to ESA programmes. The transfer of effective approaches and technologies enables countries of the South to join forces in meeting their aims of reducing rural poverty and ensuring food security. By using experts from other countries in project design, for instance, or setting up learning and sharing opportunities in the region, IFAD has helped foster such exchanges. 

The indigenous population of the Republic of Congo (RC) include the Baka, Mbendjele, Mikaya, Luma, Gyeli, Twa and Babongo peoples. Depending on sources, these peoples represent a small minority of 1.25 to 10 percent of RC’s estimated population of 4.4 million, primarily of Bantu origin.

Esta publicación de Lecciones Aprendidas tiene como objetivo proporcionar a los equipos de diseño observaciones basadas en experiencias concretas provenientes de proyectos del FIDA y de otros donantes que puedan ser útiles para el diseño de proyectos de cadenas de valor. Este documento es parte de un conjunto de publicaciones (caja de herramientas) que incluye además un documento de Notas sobre el Diseño de Proyectos de Cadenas de Valor Agrícolas y un Cuadro General

IFAD is committed to gender equality. Women embody half the talent and energy at any country’s disposal. That’s why greater gender equality leads to higher economic growth and better lives.

The LOC is a loan to a participating financial institution (PFI) for on-lending to customers who are expected to repay their loans with interest.

Este estudio de caso ilustra cómo la Metodología para fomentar la transformación en los hogares se ha utilizado de manera eficaz en Etiopía, destacando cómo ha funcionado en un contexto particular.

This case study illustrates how the Men's Travelling Conference (household methodology) has been used effectively in Kenya, highlighting how it has worked in a particular context.  
 

This document highlights IFAD’s and other partners’ experiences with products, services, methods and approaches associated with Loan Guarantee Funds. It will assist IFAD’s country programme manager (CPM) to take up evidence-based good practices that can aid IFAD’s thematic focus.

This How To Do Note highlights the rationale for using Loan Guarantee Funds, focusing on different types of guarantee arrangements, as well as their strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. It also summarizes global experience with LGFs.

The Note provides country programme management teams, programme design teams, implementation teams, and other practitioners and users with evidence-based good practices and guidelines so that they can design and implement more effective and contextually appropriate guarantees. 

Community-based financial organizations (CBFOs) are often the only institutions available to provide basic financial services to the rural poor, especially in remote areas with inadequate infrastructure.

CBFOs can be organized in many different ways. This knowledge document elaborates on the lessons learned in designing and implementing support for a CBFO.

This how to do note addresses KPIs and PBAs at the level of partnering financial institutions. In this context, key performance targets are included in various documents, including strategic plans, business plans and possibly budgets at different levels. 

Also, they can be used as an important support instrument for results-based management.

This How To Do Note highlights the philosophy and rationale for LOCs, focusing on different types of LOC arrangements, as well as their strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. It summarizes global experience with LOCs in order to clearly outline when they should and should not be used. It presents practical aspects of specific approaches, methodologies and models that have been tested and can be recommended for
implementation and scaling up. 

This Lessons Learned note provides practical suggestions and guidelines to CPMs and the country programme management to help them design and implement programmes and projects. 

The purpose of this guidance is to provide CPMTs with some observations based on lessons learned from IFAD and other donors’ projects, as well as from the World Bank Operations Evaluation Department (OED 2006) LOC review that may help in the design of LOCs. 

This How To Do Note helps design teams to improve their understanding of different types of community-based financial organizations and the support structures they need to best serve remote poor rural communities.

This note provides an overview on Loan Guarantee Funds highlighting the main issues, challenges, opportunities and benefits.

This note provides an overview on IFAD's support to community-based financial organizations highlighting the main issues, challenges, opportunities and benefits.

This note provides an overview on key performance indicators and performance-based agreements highlighting the main issues, challenges, opportunities and benefits.

This note provides an overview on lines of credit illustrating the the key issues and the main challenges, opportunities and benefits.

This case study illustrates how Household Mentoring has been used effectively in Uganda, highlighting how it has worked in a particular context. Links are provided to resources and online materials.

The toolkit on Household Methodologies (HHMs) is composed of three parts.

Strong links to markets for poor rural producers are essential to increasing agricultural income, generating economic growth in rural areas and reducing hunger and poverty. Every product that is sold locally, nationally or internationally is often part of an agricultural value chain (VC). From a development perspective, VCs are one of the instruments through which market forces can be harnessed to benefit poor rural women and men – not just producers, but wage earners, service providers and others.

This How To Do Note provides a description of the participatory land-use planning (PLUP) methodology with the steps that should be followed to implement it in IFAD interventions with some practical examples of how this has been done. 

This How To Do Note provides guidance on how to carry out a land assessment at the project design stage.

Through this assessment, it will be possible to identify key land tenure issues in the project area and to indicate how they can be resolved through project activities and interventions.

This How To Do Note provides guidance on how to carry out a land assessment at the RB-COSOP stage to provide indications on key land tenure issues that the country (or area of interest) is facing and how they could be strategically addressed to achieve the country’s strategic objectives. 

This note highlights lessons learned on pastoralism land rights and tenure aiming to inform the design and implementation of country strategies and projects from the point of view of land tenure issues faced by pastoralists.

It also provides examples of how IFAD has dealt with some of these issues through its programmes and projects.

Por tenencia de la tierra se entiende las normas, autoridades, instituciones, derechos y reglamentaciones que rigen el acceso a la tierra, su control y el de los recursos relacionados con ella. 

El FIDA siempre ha adoptado un enfoque proactivo para la focalización en la población rural pobre de todas las edades, con el objetivo de reducir las desigualdades sociales y económicas que favorecen la aparición y la perpetuación de la pobreza.

Hasta hace relativamente poco tiempo, la atención prestada a las necesidades y vulnerabilidades específicas de los jóvenes1 era escasa, debido a que no se les consideraba partes interesadas por derecho propio, sino beneficiarios subalternos e indirectos, y por tanto invisibles.

Esta percepción ha cambiado de forma radical y los proyectos financiados por el FIDA cada vez incluyen más disposiciones explícitas para el desarrollo en favor de los jóvenes.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be used in an IFAD-sponsored project to measure performance in a
regular and consistent manner. This note discusses the use of KPIs as well as the challenges associated with it. This discussion is followed by a review of the lessons learned by IFAD and other organizations, and concludes with strategic recommendations for follow-up.

The post-2015 development agenda can be structured to encourage governments and other actors to focus on strengthening the resilience of poor rural people and their livelihoods.

A number of targets that provide the basis to achieve this have already been proposed, particularly focusing on the promotion of more sustainable practices in agriculture.

IFAD POST-2015 POLICY BRIEF

Key sources in the post-2015 debate stress the role of agriculture in food security and nutrition, and suggest possible targets underscoring the role of agriculture with respect to food security and nutrition.

GALS has been developed under Oxfam Novib’s (ON) Women’s Empowerment Mainstreaming and Networking (WEMAN) Programme since 2008 with local partners and Linda Mayoux. The use of GALS in value chain development (VCD) was piloted by ON and partners in Uganda through a small IFAD grant (2009- 2011). It was rolled out by ON with local partners in Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda with the support of a large IFAD grant (2011-2014) and in other countries with cofunding from other donors.

Las notas contienen herramientas para el diseño y la ejecución de proyectos basados en buenas prácticas que se han recogido de la experiencia en el terreno. Asimismo, proporcionan orientación a los equipos para aplicar recomendaciones específicas acerca de las políticas operativas del FIDA, los requisitos básicos para la realización de proyectos y los instrumentos de financiación. 

Young people are the future. But all too often in today’s world young women and men are marginalized and excluded – from decent employment and from crucial decisions about how to address the big challenges that face us all. Their voices are rarely heard in democratic debate and their needs and views are rarely reflected in policies and programmes. Yet more than ever the world needs young people’s ideas, their talents and their energy. In rural areas, we particularly need their drive and innovative skills to sustainably produce the food required by an increasingly populous and urbanized world.

This note aims to inform the design and implementation of results-based country strategic opportunities programmes (RB-COSOPs) and projects by describing how youth are affected by insecurity of tenure and how such issues have been dealt with. It should be used at strategy, design and implementation stages.

The note explains the issues related to youth and land tenure and how they have been addressed in IFAD and other projects and programmes.

Bangladesh is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries affected by climate
change. During the monsoon period, the Haor region of Bangladesh becomes
completely inundated with 4-8 metres of water for around 6-7 months of the year.
Flash fl oods are common, and in some years 80-90 per cent of crops are lost
because of extreme weather events. The situation is expected to worsen as a climate
change-related shift towards pre-monsoon rainfall is coinciding with the paddy rice
pre-harvest period. This severely affects food output in the Haor, which provides up
to 16 per cent of national rice production.
 

The agricultural sector in Rwanda has been hit hard by climate change. Agricultural
production is increasingly exposed to drought, intense and erratic rainfall, high winds
and emerging seasonal and temperature shifts. If not addressed, climate variability
will mean signifi cant economic costs – estimated at up to US$300 million annually
by 2030.

The northern part of Nigeria is particularly vulnerable to climate change, which is reducing rural income as a result of decreased agricultural productivity – agricultural yields have declined by 20 per cent over the last 30 years in the north. ASAP interventions under CASP will strengthen the capacity of farmers to use climate information for the planning and promotion of climate-resilient farming techniques. It will also implement larger investments to reduce the impact of climate hazards on rural infrastructure, farms and livelihoods.

The project will increase the availability of adaptation assets and knowledge, which will enable target households to cope with the changing climate situation. 

The programme will support institutional capacity-building and greater public awareness on topics related to climate change resilience. Water users’ associations and farmer organizations, among other
members of the selected value chains, will benefit from activities such as the dissemination of climate change adaptation toolkits, national and international exchange visits, the dissemination of good practices
and training.

NICADAPTA will improve incomes and quality of life for rural families – and reduce their vulnerability to the impact of climate change – by facilitating access to markets for valueadded coffee and cocoa. It will introduce water efficiency and crop diversification measures such as coffee-cocoa intercropping in coffee plantations to buffer the effects of rising temperatures.

Kyrgyzstan is a food-deficit and low-income country, with a geographical position and topographical make-up that contribute to making it one of the most vulnerable
countries to the impacts of climate change in Central Asia. The country suffers from drought, land and mudslides. Flooding events and river erosion are set to increase in frequency and intensity. The mountainous nature of the country renders 45 per cent of Kyrgyzstan’s land inhospitable. The majority of the population live in valleys and at the foothills of the mountains, where vulnerability to climate-related hazards is highest.

Viet Nam is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world and among the countries hardest hit by climate change. Rising sea levels (between 75 and
100 centimetres by the end of this century) are expected to affect 20-50 per cent of the low-lying Mekong Delta. Changes in rainfall and temperatures are increasing the risk of fl oods, typhoons and droughts. Climate change has serious implications for Viet Nam’s socio-economic development, especially in the densely populated and productive Mekong Delta.  

The programme will support the design and implementation of participatory management plans for ecosystem conservation to alleviate stresses and increase the resilience of fragile habitats.

The programme will stimulate more sustainable economic growth for women and men in
rural communities. This includes increasing their resilience to climate change impacts by
helping communities to diversify their livelihoods options and improving the management
of natural resources. Investments in climate-resilient infrastructure will also support
agricultural development.

ASAP resources are complementing the first component (natural resource management, investment in assets and enterprise development) of ACCESOS. 

Matching grants (MGs) are used increasingly by multilateral and bilateral institutions, including the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Bank, to cofinance productive assets and investments. Although confined initially to investments with clear public good characteristics, their use has spread. They finance a broad array of assets and productivity-enhancing technologies for groups, companies and individuals, benefiting the private sector directly with clear private goods characteristics. MGs are used as a short-term financing instrument to promote diffusion of technologies and enable target groups to carry out productivity-enhancing investments, compensating for the limited availability and high costs of term finance. At times, MGs incorporate a “crowding in” mechanism to attract financiers by sharing the risks and increasing the effective collateral value of the asset being financed. They are also used to support innovations that, by their nature, are more risky and less likely to attract loan finance. Despite their appeal as a relatively simple instrument to address access to finance constraints in the short run, there are several risks, which can limit their effectiveness and impact. When poorly designed and poorly implemented, MGs can distort and crowd out private and public investments. 

Between 2009 and 2012, the IFAD-supported Scaling up Micro-irrigation Systems (SCAMPIS) project developed a market approach for the dissemination of locally adapted drip irrigation kits. 

The approach identifies the technology that is best suited to the local context and appropriate for the most vulnerable rural inhabitants. It then builds a sustainable local supply chain for the irrigation equipment that makes the technology affordable and available, not just for the duration of the project but in the long term.

In just three years, the pilot project was able to dramatically change the lives of 30,000 farmers and their families (in total, around 150,000 poor rural people) on three continents.

This paper outlines IFAD’s strategic approach to enhancing food security and promoting sustainable smallholder agriculture development in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the context of exacerbated impacts of climate change and persistent challenges to market access. A renewed approach will provide an opportunity for increasing results and impacts from agriculture and fisheries, reducing the high transaction costs of project delivery in SIDS, adjusting to an ever-changing development environment and – most of all – avoiding the overlooking of SIDS’ persistent fragility and the risk that they are cut off from development assistance.

In 2005, IFAD and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) formed a partnership to promote a better understanding of the links between rural poverty, livelihoods and water access.

Together they developed an approach to map information relating to poverty, livelihood activities and water availability across sub-Saharan Africa.

By correlating this information, they have been able to substantiate context-specific proposals for water investments.

Los resultados de los estudios señalan la importancia de la agricultura como actividad económica para la reproducción de estas unidades en todo el continente y demuestran que el conjunto de los agricultores familiares especializados es el grupo mayoritario en relación al total de las unidades productivas. Por otro lado, comprobamos que la función de residencia rural y la combinación de actividades y fuentes de ingresos es una característica importante que existe en todos los países estudiados, y que los ingresos y las actividades no agropecuarias de los agricultores familiares no son insignificativos, aunque son bajos.

This publication shows how tailor-made educational programmes (such as the Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools approach) can provide rural youth with the skills and insights needed to engage in farming and adopt environmentally friendly production methods. 

These Guidelines are the result of an extensive process of consultation and a concerted effort that brought together different fisheries and
climate change experts in different moments in time. Substantive inputs were provided by a range of stakeholders, including smallholder
farmers, aquaculturists, academics, personnel from ministries of agriculture and environment, and development cooperation partners.

Improved Learning Initiative for the design of a Participatory Impact Assessment & Learning Approach (PIALA) in Viet Nam.

This Focus Note introduces some recent developments in this rapidly changing space. The featured case studies (i) identify traditional pain points in serving smallholder farmers (such as the cost and risk of making payments to farmers and delivering subsidized credit), (ii) discuss how DFS are being used to overcome these pain points, and (iii) highlight some initial obstacles and successes.

The objective of this Annual Progress Report is to review the activities of the Platform for Agricultural Risk Management (PARM) during its first year of life or, more precisely, thirteen months since its launch in December 2013.

In 2014, Kenya was newly classified as a lower-middle-income country, with financial services and infrastructure expected to drive growth of 5 to 6 percent annually over the next five years. At the same time, the country is still in protracted crisis, with recurrent natural disasters, conflict, severe drought and hunger affecting livelihoods. Overall, about 10 million Kenyans suffer from chronic food insecurity and poor nutrition. Recurring drought means that a larger number of people in a growing population are unable to meet their food needs. Good seasons between droughts are increasingly rare, making it difficult for households to recover from crisis to crisis. Severe land degradation, primarily caused by deforestation, unsuitable agricultural practices and flooding, has had a negative impact on agricultural production.

Among the world’s developing regions, Asia and the Pacific region has witnessed the deepest and fastest structural transformation. The Green Revolution that began in the 1960s spurred the rapid spread of improved varieties of cereal crops, accompanied by public investments in and policy support to the agricultural sector. As a result, productivity of wheat and rice increased dramatically, stimulating economic growth and reducing rural poverty. In the following decades, and especially since 2000, the structural transformation further accelerated, leading to a declined share of the sector in both output and GDP and, to a lesser extent, in the total employment. Facilitated by a conducive institutional and policy environment, the process brought about a more diversified, market-oriented and high-value agricultural production; the expansion of food processing, agribusiness, food retailing and exports; and increased domestic and international competitiveness of agriculture – albeit with country and subregional differences. Nevertheless, poverty, deprivation and hunger remain widespread. Two thirds of the world’s poor and hungry people live in the region, mostly in rural environments. Income inequality has been rising fast in a number of countries, especially between urban and rural areas, with adverse effects on poverty reduction and increased risk of social conflict and political instability. Moreover, the countries and subregions are at different stages of the structural transformation process. In most developing economies, labour productivity in agriculture is still low and the shift of the agricultural workforce to other sectors is yet to take place. Therefore, agriculture remains a critical livelihood option and the largest employer sector for most rural people. 

Conozca los resultados y el impacto del FIDA leyendo el Informe Anual 2013. En él se relatan asimismo las historias de las mujeres y hombres de las zonas rurales en los que el Fondo invierte, y se describen las dificultades con que se enfrentan y sus logros. En el Informe se detalla la labor del FIDA a fin de que las necesidades de las comunidades rurales figuren siempre entre las cuestiones prioritarias de los programas de desarrollo internacionales, ya que el 76 por ciento de las personas más pobres del mundo vive en zonas rurales. En él se ofrecen, además, los datos y cifras que el Fondo comunica periódicamente a sus Estados miembros y asociados.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has undergone a transformation in recent years, adapting itself to an environment more complex and challenging than at any other point in its history: persistent hunger and food insecurity; rising and more volatile food prices; floods, droughts and the ever-more apparent effects of climate change; increasing competition for land; global financial crisis; and a growing human population that has surpassed 7 billion.

In 2001, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council approved the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) as an executing agency under its policy of expanded opportunities for executing agencies. 

MPAT was originally developed in China and India. In China, iterative testing was conducted in 2008 in order to refine and improve the draft Household and Village Surveys. After five rounds of testing in China and India, the project team felt that the surveys and indicators were sufficiently developed to warrant a large-scale pilot in both countries.

In China, the pilot was conducted in the context of an ongoing IFAD-supported project in Gansu Province in China’s arid north. The data from the pilots in China and India (see also Box 2 and Box 3) were then shared with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre so they could conduct an independent evaluation of MPAT. Results from a pilot village in China are presented, together with a photo of farmers planting seeds below.

This publication illustrates IFAD’s experience in closing the gender gap and mobilizing the ‘gender advantage’ in climate change adaptation through ten case studies from across the world. 

This book examines the growing divergence between subsistence and business oriented small farms, and discusses how this divergence has been impacted by population growth, trends in farm size distribution, urbanization, off-farm income diversification, and the globalization of agricultural value chains.

This overview document represents a synthesis of 4 policy briefs produced by IFAD, complemented by joint work with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) in the area of food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture in the post-2015 agenda. 

IFAD’s work in the post-2015 debate is inspired by its unique mandate to invest in poor rural people to enable them to overcome poverty and to transform their lives.

Article in F@rmletter - The E-magazine of the World’s Farmers (pg 12-13). It describes the Flexi Biogas system as an innovative portable biogas model. 

This was the result of small grant to pilot the technology as part of the Innovation Mainstreaming Initiative funded by the UK Department for International Development.

El Instrumento de evaluación de la pobreza multidimensional proporciona datos que pueden informar a todos los niveles de la toma de decisiones al ofrecer una comprensión más clara de la pobreza rural a nivel de los hogares y las aldeas. Como resultado, la MPAT puede reforzar significativamente la planificación, el diseño, el seguimiento y la evaluación de un proyecto, y contribuir así a la reducción de la pobreza rural.