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Mewira Chitima, water and infrastructure specialist at IFAD, talks about availability and access to water and rural infrastructure for resilience, market access and economic growth.

The President of IFAD, Gilbert F. Houngbo, will be in Maputo, Mozambique for the Growing Blue Conference where he will speak to the need for greater investment in sustainable development for rural people whose livelihoods depend on aquatic resources including small-scale fisheries, aquaculture and coastal environments.

This week I had the chance to witness the impressive resilience and creativity of people working to improve agriculture in Cabo Verde.

Every day Dienaba Sow travels 3.5 kilometres from her home in Hodio village towards Toung, in Senegal's Louga region, to collect water for her family's daily needs.

Irrigation is a lynchpin of rural development strategies. In particular, small-scale irrigation projects are commonplace due to their relatively low cost and user-led management.

In areas of Guatemala which are chronically affected by droughts, IFAD-supported irrigation schemes and practices make farmland four times more productive.

Vietnam is the world's second largest exporter of rice and 60 percent of it is grown in the Mekong Delta. But now farmers in at least two provinces say the future of rice production is threatened because of rising sea levels and temperature increases attributed to climate change.

Weather patterns are becoming more unpredictable in the Sahel region of Burkina Faso. Farmers say the rainy season that once began regularly in June is often delayed and when the rain finally does come the sudden force and volume of water can cause flooding and destroy crops.

In The Gambia, women often farm on degraded, unproductive land. The more fertile land is usually reserved for men. But things are changing.

Like thousands of poor farmers living on the slopes of East Mount Kenya, Christine Mugure Munene used to depend on seasonal rains to water her crops. Now she has water whenever she wants.