Recursos

Esta Notas Prácticas (HTDN en sus siglas en inglés) en este conjunto de herramientas sobre Apoyar a los Sistemas de Semillas de Pequeños Productores aborda las complejidades de los sistemas de semillas, estableciendo un proceso para apoyar a los responsables de la toma de decisiones de las políticas agrícolas nacionales, a las agencias de desarrollo nacionales e internacionales y a los Gerentes de los Programas en los países del FIDA en el diseño y supervisión de proyectos relacionados con semillas. Las otras publicaciones de esta herramienta son el Teaser y las Enseñanzas Extraídas.

Among ecosystems services, freshwater is one of the most fundamental for life. For smallholders, water means the difference between a decent life and poverty, hunger and malnutrition. 

This publication seeks to provide development practitioners, governmental and non-governmental organizations and agencies with insights into the case studies on overcoming the challenges that young people face in diverse contexts. 

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.

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

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

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. 

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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. 

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. 

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.