Recursos

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.

Following an inclusive consultation and negotiation process, which involved more than 70 countries, international organizations, and representatives of the civil society and the private sector, the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGs) were officially endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security on 11 May 2012. The VGs set out principles, technical recommendations and practices for improving the governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests. They promote secure tenure rights and equitable access to these resources as a means of eradicating hunger and poverty, supporting sustainable development and protecting the environment. They give recommendations to countries and to other key actors, who are strongly encouraged to adopt and use them on a voluntary basis.

Annexes (Volume 2) of the Partnership in Progress: 2012-2013.

Depuis 1981, le FIDA a financé 12 projets et programmes au Burkina Faso pour un montant total de 158,6 millions de dollars des États-Unis. 

La Oficina de Auditoría y Supervisión (AUO) y la Sección de Investigaciones (IS) de esta oficina tienen encomendado el mandato de investigar las supuestas prácticas irregulares en las actividades y operaciones del FIDA. Este mandato se deriva de los estatutos de la AUO, las normas relativas a los recursos humanos y el Código de Conducta del FIDA, y la Política del FIDA en materia de prevención del fraude y la corrupción en sus actividades y operaciones. Las actividades de investigación y lucha contra la corrupción del FIDA tienen por objeto garantizar que los fondos destinados al desarrollo lleguen a los beneficiarios previstos de la manera más eficiente, eficaz y transparente posible y que el personal del FIDA se rija por las normas de integridad y ética establecidas por el Fondo. El número de nuevas denuncias recibidas en 2013 fue ligeramente superior a las recibidas en 2012 (39 frente a 33 en 2012). Aumentó el número de denuncias externas, sobre todo relacionadas con las adquisiciones y contrataciones, así como el número de casos relacionados con miembros del personal. En 2013, la AUO cerró satisfactoriamente 41 casos, entre ellos diversos casos de carácter complejo, y en seis casos se aplicaron medidas disciplinarias o sanciones, cinco de ellos internos y uno externo. 

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are funding a number of projects developed to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to improving food security, income generation and women’s empowerment, while respecting traditional knowledge and socio-cultural values. 

Family poultry production plays an essential role in some of these projects.

En el presente informe, FIDA pretende recopilar de exhaustiva las diferentes experiencias en la colaboración con las organizaciones campesinas y determinar las tendencias regionales que han ido surgiendo.

El estudio representa un punto de partida para la ampliación de escala y la profundización de los logros en otros países y contextos. Igualmente se analizan las modalidades de asocio utilizadas durante el bienio 2012-2013, y se exponen ejemplos de las experiencias exitosas y los logros alcanzados en el marco de los programas de FIDA en los países y su cartera de subvenciones.

El informe se basa en los resultados de una encuesta realizada por los gerentes de los programas del FIDA en los países de intervención, entrevistas con el personal de FIDA correspondiente y un examen teórico en profundidad de los documentos relativos a los proyectos nuevos y en curso y a determinadas subvenciones a nivel regional y programas en los países.

En el presente informe, FIDA pretende recopilar de exhaustiva las diferentes experiencias en la colaboración con las organizaciones campesinas y determinar las tendencias regionales que han ido surgiendo.

El estudio representa un punto de partida para la ampliación de escala y la profundización de los logros en otros países y contextos. Igualmente se analizan las modalidades de asocio utilizadas durante el bienio 2012-2013, y se exponen ejemplos de las experiencias exitosas y los logros alcanzados en el marco de los programas de FIDA en los países y su cartera de subvenciones.

El informe se basa en los resultados de una encuesta realizada por los gerentes de los programas del FIDA en los países de intervención, entrevistas con el personal de FIDA correspondiente y un examen teórico en profundidad de los documentos relativos a los proyectos nuevos y en curso y a determinadas subvenciones a nivel regional y programas en los países. 

These case studies present IFAD’s experiences in building PPPs in country projects and programmes around the world, from which we draw conclusions, lessons learned and the way forward.

The overall objective of the Lower Usuthu Smallholder Irrigation Project (LUSIP) is the 1.reduction of poverty and sustained improvement in the standard of living of the population in the Lower Usuthu Basin through commercialization and intensification of agriculture. The immediate objectives of LUSIP Phase I were: (a) the integration of smallholder farmers into the commercial economy through the provision of irrigation infrastructure, development of the policy and legal framework for smallholder irrigation, as well as the establishment of farmer-managed irrigation institutions; and (b) sustainable improvement in environmental health in the project area to ensure that the population derives the full benefits of agricultural commercialisation.

In order to improve your knowledge in this key area, make sure you consult our new e-learning course.

Flash News for the IMI-funded project “Filling the intergenerational gap in knowledge on Agricultural Water Management: twinning Junior and Senior Experts”.

Gender and rural development brief with specific focus on the Near East and North Africa.

En la actualidad Latinoamérica presenta diferentes retos para promover el desarrollo rural de sus comunidades, combatir la escasez de agua y garantizar su seguridad alimentaria. En los últimos años, México ha sufrido una serie de eventos hidrometeorológicos que han generado graves daños sociales y económicos que requieren de importantes inversiones para permitir a las regiones afectadas regresar a su condición habitual. Esto ha hecho evidente la gran vulnerabilidad del país así como la importancia que juega la capacidad de adaptación de la nación o en otras palabras, la resiliencia del país.

Summary report on the workshop "Mainstreaming policy dialogue: from vision to action" organized by LAC and PTA on 17 October 2013.

IFAD has committed US$71.4 million in loans to Jordan since 1981 to support agricultural development and reduce rural poverty. The funds have been used in six agricultural development programmes and projects with a total value of US$189.3 million. 

The Government of Jordan and project participants have contributed US$63.2 million. The programmes and
projects are designed by IFAD in collaboration with rural people, the government and other partners. They address poverty through promotion of sustainable natural resource management, particularly water and soil conservation. A seventh project is being designed.

Gender and rural development brief with specific focus on the Pacific Islands.

This paper seeks to draw on both the positive aspects of current practice and the critiques that have been made, to propose an action plan for strengthening IFAD’s engagement in country level policy dialogue.

It outlines a set of broad principles underpinning IFAD’s approach, the first of which is the reaffirmation that policy engagement must be shaped and led by the CPM.

It also makes specific proposals for more effectively integrating country-level policy dialogue in IFAD country programmes; for improving IFAD’s monitoring, reporting and knowledge management on the subject; and for strengthening in-house capacity for country-level policy dialogue.  

Describes what IFAD and the Policy and Technical Advisory division are supporting country-level policy engagement.

It also summarizes past experience and explains how Country Programme Managers can access funds to engage in country-level policy dialogue.

An IFAD Supervision Mission visited the project from 20th June to 5th July 2013. The main 1.objectives of the supervision mission are to ensure that the development objectives of the projects are being met and to satisfy IFAD‟s fiduciary responsibilities, with a focus on: (i) assessment of the implementation progress of the project, including assessment of the achievement of outputs by component and outcome as per the logframe of the project; (ii) assistance to identify and remove implementation bottlenecks and constraints; and (iii) agree on a set of actions to be implemented by the project in the next six to twelve months period.

El mundo actual está lleno de paradojas, algunas grotescas, pero ninguna de ellas lo es más que el hecho de que mientras 870 millones de personas pasan hambre cada día, un tercio de todos los alimentos se pierde o se desperdicia. Nos maravillamos ante las tasas de crecimiento de los países de ingresos medios, pero en algunos de esos países viven decenas de millones de personas muy pobres. Alrededor del 75 por ciento de los habitantes más pobres del mundo viven en las zonas rurales y obtienen sus medios de vida principalmente de la agricultura, al tiempo que producen más del 80 por ciento de los alimentos que se consumen en África Subsahariana y partes de Asia. No obstante, muchos de ellos son a su vez compradores netos de alimentos.

Brochure illustrating IFAD's support to coffee value-chain development.

Small-scale producers in the development of tea value chain partnerships 

Brochure illustrating IFAD's support to cocoa value-chain development.

La tesis defendida en este artículo es que los gobiernos de los países que planifican sus programas de desarrollo agrícola y rural a gran escala —por lo general abarcando todo el sector agrícola y todos o la mayoría de los componentes importantes para el crecimiento agrícola y el desarrollo rural— obtienen mejores resultados en cuanto a producción agrícola y reducción de la pobreza rural y el hambre que los que no realizan inversiones de mayor magnitud y de escala en este tipo de desarrollo.

Conozca los resultados y el impacto del FIDA leyendo el Informe Anual 2012. En él se relatan asimismo las historias de las mujeres y hombres con los que el Fondo trabaja en las zonas rurales; se describen las dificultades con que se enfrentan y sus logros. En el informe de este año se ponen de relieve las nuevas orientaciones e iniciativas del FIDA, que contribuyen a aumentar la seguridad alimentaria y reducir la pobreza rural en el mundo en desarrollo. El informe ofrece, además, los datos y cifras que el Fondo comunica periódicamente a sus Estados Miembros y asociados.