Recursos

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.