Savoirs

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. 

Le Comité de pilotage du Forum a décidé que l’autonomisation économique des peuples autochtones, notamment des femmes et des jeunes, devait être le thème général de la troisième réunion mondiale du Forum. 

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.

Cette année, le rapport sur L’État de la sécurité alimentaire et de la nutrition dans le monde marque l’avènement d’une ère nouvelle de suivi des progrès accomplis pour parvenir à un monde libéré de la faim et de la malnutrition, dans le cadre défini par les objectifs de développement durable (ODD). Plus précisément, le rapport rendra compte désormais des avancées réalisées pour atteindre les cibles associées à l’élimination de la faim et à la prévention de toutes les formes de malnutrition.

Il comportera également des analyses thématiques montrant en quoi la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition sont liées à d’autres cibles des ODD. Le champ d’étude ayant été étendu au thème de la nutrition, le Fonds des Nations Unies pour l’enfance (UNICEF) et l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS) ont rejoint le groupe de partenaires élaborant habituellement ce rapport annuel, à savoir, la FAO, le Fonds international de développement agricole (FIDA) et le Programme alimentaire mondial (PAM).

Nous espérons que le partenariat élargi nous aidera à mieux comprendre les diverses dimensions de ce qu’il faut faire pour éliminer la faim et toutes les formes de malnutrition et se traduira par des actions intégrées permettant d’atteindre ce but essentiel.

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.

En 2016, le Bureau de l'audit et de la surveillance (AUO) et sa Section des enquêtes ont joué un rôle essentiel pour garantir le respect du principe de tolérance zéro adopté par le FIDA à l’égard de la corruption, de la fraude et de la faute professionnelle. Le Bureau a su réagir efficacement et dans les meilleurs délais aux allégations d’actes répréhensibles en achevant les investigations concernant 56 plaintes au cours de l’année, soit un taux d’achèvement beaucoup plus élevé que les années précédentes, et en faisant généralement en sorte de

mettre un terme aux problèmes avec promptitude et efficacité.

Les actions de sensibilisation à la lutte contre la corruption se sont intensifiées avec la participation d’AUO à un certain nombre d’activités, notamment à l’échelle régionale, le lancement à titre expérimental d’un module de formation en ligne en matière de lutte contre la corruption, la célébration de la Journée internationale de lutte contre la corruption et une intensification des activités de coordination avec la Division des services de gestion financière (FMD), le Bureau de la déontologie (ETH) et le Département gestion des programmes (PMD).

In Argentina, IFAD helps reduce rural poverty by investing in smallholder farmer organisations and indigenous communities to increase their income. The country programme strategy (2016-2021) is based on national priorities and has three strategic objectives focusing on income and strategic opportunities; human and social capital; and institutional development.

The strategy emphasizes the central role farmer and community organizations play in rural transformation processes. Key activities include:
• bolstering the economic sustainability of families and organizations by improving and diversifying productive activities, building resilience, improving their negotiating power in value chains, and promoting good nutritional practices
• strengthening the capacity of poor rural people and organizations by improving their managerial capacity, socio-economic condition, and their ability to engage in dialogue with the public sector
• building the capacity of government institutions to support rural development.

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

Le mandat du FIDA est unique en son genre, comme est incomparable son expérience des interventions dans les zones reculées, où les autres institutions ne vont pas et où la pauvreté est la plus profondément enracinée.

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.

Découvrez, dans notre Rapport annuel 2016, les actions entreprises par le FIDA pour promouvoir la transformation du monde rural. Le document montre aussi comment nos investissements autonomisent les ruraux, femmes et hommes, et présente les données et les chiffres que nous communiquons à nos États membres et nos partenaires. Vous pourrez également en apprendre davantage sur les activités de plaidoyer que nous menons au nom des communautés rurales à travers le monde.

Famine, conflits, migrations forcées, pauvreté, faim, inégalités, sécheresse, changements climatiques.

Pour résoudre les problèmes majeurs que connaît l’humanité, il nous faut aller au fond des choses, autrement dit, nous attaquer aux causes les plus profondes de ces problèmes et oeuvrer avec les populations les plus défavorisées, qui sont aussi les plus vulnérables et les plus difficiles à atteindre.

Trop souvent oubliés dans les chaînes de valeur modernes, les petits exploitants familiaux, les commerçants, les ouvriers agricoles, les pêcheurs et les chasseurs-cueilleurs souffrent de la faim alors même qu’ils produisent de la nourriture.

Depuis quatre décennies, le FIDA est le seul organisme qui cible spécifiquement ces populations. Organisme des Nations Unies et institution financière internationale, il est la seule entité de ce type qui consacre toute son action aux zones rurales. Donnant la priorité à l’être humain, le Fonds lutte contre la pauvreté et la faim, en étroite collaboration avec les familles et les communautés. Le FIDA ne se contente pas de donner des conseils ou de faire des recommandations; il apporte avec lui des partenaires, des investissements et des projets à long terme pour assurer la durabilité.
 

En 2015, les États membres de l’Organisation des Nations Unies ont lancé un appel à l’action pour éradiquer la pauvreté mondiale, réduire les inégalités économiques et placer le monde sur une voie plus durable: le Programme de développement durable à l’horizon 2030.

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. 

Il existe aujourd’hui près de 250 millions de migrants internationaux dans le monde, qui vivent dans un autre pays que celui qu’ils considèrent comme «chez eux». De tout temps, les individus se sont déplacés, à la recherche de meilleures opportunités pour eux et pour leurs familles; mais l’ampleur des migrations des zones rurales vers les zones urbaines et des mouvements transfrontaliers au XXIe siècle est sans précédent. Le phénomène a été qualifié à raison de «face humaine de la mondialisation».

Le présent rapport fournit des données et une analyse des envois de fonds et de l’évolution des migrations dans les pays en développement au cours de la dernière décennie et examine également la contribution potentielle des familles qui reçoivent des fonds à la réalisation des ODD d’ici 2030.

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. 

Les 15 et 16 juin 2017, à l’occasion de la Journée internationale des transferts d’argent familiaux, plus de 350 acteurs des secteurs public et privé se sont réunis au Siège des Nations Unies, à New York, pour participer à la cinquième édition du Forum mondial sur les transferts d’argent, l’investissement et le développement (GFRID 2017). Les participants ont eu l’occasion de débattre des défis et opportunités liés au marché des transferts d’argent, de présenter des approches innovantes et plusieurs modèles d’affaires éprouvés, en centrant leurs discussions sur le rôle des transferts d’argent et des investissements réalisés par les migrants dans la réalisation des Objectifs de développement durable (ODD) à l’horizon 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.

Dix années d’engagement du FIDA aux côtés des peuples autochtones Au cours des dix dernières années, de grandes avancées ont été réalisées dans la reconnaissance formelle des droits des peuples autochtones. Nous citerons notamment l’adoption de la Déclaration des Nations Unies sur les droits des peuples autochtones (UNDRIP), lors de l’Assemblée générale des Nations Unies en 2007. Fort de plus de 30 années de collaboration avec les peuples autochtones, le FIDA dote les communautés des moyens nécessaires pour atteindre leurs propres objectifs et participer pleinement à l’élaboration des stratégies favorables à leur développement. Lors de la dernière décennie, le FIDA a pris des mesures pour soutenir les peuples autochtones à mieux contrôler leurs propres initiatives de développement.

Cette publication se penche sur la manière dont le FIDA a fait évoluer son engagement auprès des peuples autochtones, en donnant la parole à ceux et à celles qui ont participé ensemble à ce processus de changement. Dans le droit fil du Programme de développement durable à l’horizon 2030 (Programme 2030), qui vise à ne laisser personne de côté, le Cadre stratégique du FIDA 2016-2025 réaffirme l’engagement du Fonds en faveur du développement autonome des peuples autochtones. Les citations et les photographies qui figurent dans ce document proviennent de la troisième réunion mondiale du Forum des peuples autochtones au FIDA, du 10 au 13 février 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.