Savoirs

Ghana has the third largest IFAD country programme in the West and Central Africa region. The programme contributes to building inclusive and
sustainable institutions, backed by pro-poor investments and policies as well as relevant innovation and learning. IFAD supports the main thrusts of the government’s Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda – including accelerated agricultural modernization, sustainable natural resource
management and enhanced private-sector competitiveness. 

Its work also aligns with Ghana’s Medium Term Agriculture Sector Investment Plan on food security, income growth and other programme areas related to rural poverty reduction.

Somalia’s poverty and food security situation remains critical after years of conflict and natural disasters. Since the 1980s, IFAD has supported nine programmes in the country for a total of US$140 million.
There is currently no country strategic opportunities programme for Somalia.

However, the strategic objectives of IFAD interventions in Somalia can be summarized as follows:
• Increase incomes and food security by supporting agriculture and related activities, improving access to water, sanitation and health care, strengthening the natural resource base and building rural financial services;
• Identify and promote pro-poor investment mechanisms in rural areas for dissemination, replication and scaling up; and
• Build the capacity of the diaspora and promote the transformation of people in the diaspora into agents of development through remittances – the portion of their earnings that migrants outside the country send home.

The World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism (WISP) is a global knowledge and advocacy network that promotes understanding of sustainable pastoral development for both poverty reduction and sustainable environmental management. WISP was executed by the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN).

The Programme built the capacity of pastoral institutions to engage in advocacy based on state-of-the-art global learning on sustainable pastoralism, enabling pastoralist institutions around the world to network and shared experiences and opportunities, and ensured that the voice of pastoralists remained central to policy discourse and learning.

Land is fundamental to the lives of poor rural people. It is a source of food, shelter, income and social identity.

Secure access to land reduces vulnerability to hunger and poverty. But for many of the world’s poor rural people in developing countries, access is becoming more tenuous than ever. 

In 2013, IFAD commissioned a study to analyse project management arrangements for market‑oriented smallholder agriculture. As IFAD adapts to the changing development discourse, the organization has focused increasingly on improving Project Management Unit (PMU) arrangements in order to provide more effective and expanded management and technical skills. This review was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of PMUs and their alignment with the Paris Declaration principles, as well as to identify lessons or frameworks to guide future project management and implementation arrangements. It investigated five case studies drawn from different regions and types of projects.  

 IFAD has been working in small island developing states (SIDS) for 35 years, financing investments for smallholder farmers and fishers.

IFAD recognizes that small island developing states are different than other developing countries. 

They face constraints that are quite particular to their size, remoteness, insularity and ocean resource base. In the light of a changing world and new challenges faced by rural people living in SIDS, IFAD recently took the opportunity of the Global Conference on Small Island Developing States held in Samoa in 2014 to articulate its lessons learned and current approach to financing investment in rural people in its paper presented at the Conference, IFAD’s approach in Small Island Developing States.

Le Mécanisme d’assistance pour les peuples autochtones (IPAF), mis en place par le FIDA, a pour objectif de renforcer les communautés de populations autochtones et leurs organisations par le financement de petits projets qui favorisent leur développement autonome dans le cadre de la Déclaration des Nations Unies sur les droits des peuples autochtones, pour en tirer des enseignements et définir des approches en vue d’une reproduction et d’une application à plus grande échelle.

The Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility (IPAF)1 finances small projects designed and implemented directly by indigenous peoples’ communities and their organizations. The projects are selected through global calls for proposals, based on a competitive process. In managing the IPAF when it was established in 2007, IFAD realized that the Facility was not only a grant-making mechanism, but it also contained a wealth of knowledge derived from the project proposals themselves. With its limited funding, the IPAF can support only a small number of these proposals. Thus, a knowledge-harvesting mechanism was set up with funding from the Initiative for Mainstreaming Innovation (IMI). 

L’accès équitable à la terre et la sécurité foncière des groupes cibles du FIDA sont essentiels au développement rural et à l’éradication de la pauvreté. La sécurité foncière influe sur la mesure dans laquelle les agriculteurs sont disposés à investir dans l’amélioration de la production et de la gestion des terres. Elle façonne les relations sociales et contribue à la stabilité de la société – ou plutôt, son absence contribue à l’instabilité et aux conflits sociaux. La sécurité foncière influence la répartition du produit de l’activité agricole entre les individus et les groupes, tant au sein des ménages qu’au sein des communautés. Elle peut aussi avoir un impact sur l’accès au crédit.

La petite production animale repose largement sur l’agriculture familiale et joue un rôle essentiel dans la subsistance des populations rurales pauvres, la sécurité alimentaire et la création d’emplois. L’élevage constitue une ressource alimentaire pour la consommation des ménages et offre des produits qui permettent de générer des revenus et de créer des rentrées d’argent rapides pour faire face aux situations d’urgence et aux chocs externes (conditions climatiques, maladies, volatilité des prix, etc.). L’élevage offre des atouts appréciables qui répondent aux divers besoins des petits exploitants (fumier, moyen de traction et de transport, etc.), tout en ayant une valeur culturelle et spirituelle. L’élevage de la volaille et des petits ruminants est généralement géré par les femmes, lesquelles en tirent des bénéfices directs.

Fort de l’action menée en près de quarante ans dans plus de 70 pays et grâce aux fonds investis dans des initiatives de finance rurale, soit globalement plus de 1,1 milliard d’USD, le FIDA est riche d’une expérience aux multiples facettes et peut compter sur un réseau mondial de partenaires qui travaillent aux frontières de l'innovation et sur des centaines de prestataires de tout ordre prêts à répondre aux besoins financiers des ménages ruraux pauvres qui constituent leur clientèle. La plupart des trois milliards de personnes qui vivent en milieu rural subsistent encore aujourd’hui avec moins de deux dollars par jour. Les défis que représentent les chocs économiques, les pénuries alimentaires et le changement climatique pèsent sur les populations pauvres de manière disproportionnée. En règle générale, les ménages ruraux pauvres n’ont pas accès aux facilités offertes par le secteur financier officiel.

Processus de reproduction à plus grande échelle intelligents face au climat

L’avantage comparatif du FIDA réside dans son expérience de travail au niveau local, dans sa compréhension des contraintes auxquelles sont confrontées les populations rurales pauvres, y compris les plus vulnérables, et dans sa capacité à envisager des approches du développement socioéconomique sans exclusive. Le soutien aux organisations rurales de petits exploitants, en vue de favoriser l’autonomisation des ruraux pauvres, fait partie des éléments clés de l'approche du développement adoptée par le FIDA. Les organisations de petits exploitants, lorsqu’elles sont fortes, ouvertes à tous et qu’elles bénéficient d’une large assise, représentent des partenaires importants pour les gouvernements, les ONG, les donateurs et les acteurs du secteur privé à la recherche de nouveaux marchés.

Taller regional de América Latina y el Caribe en preparación de la segunda reunión mundial del Foro de Pueblos Indígenas en el FIDA.

Africa Regional Workshop in preparation for the Second Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum at IFAD.

La méthode a été élaborée par le Réseau des hommes (Men’s Network), qui se charge de sa mise en œuvre.

L’accompagnement des ménages est mis en œuvre dans les régions nord et sud du Malawi, dans les périmètres d’irrigation de Likangala, Limphasa, Muona et Nkhata des districts de Chikwawa, Nkhata Bay, Nsanje et Zomba. Dans le district de Zomba, cette approche a été appliquée à six groupes dans les zones de planification de la vulgarisation de Malosa, Mpokwa et Thondwe. 

To address food security problems and soaring prices for basic commodities, in December 2008 the European Union launched a Food Facility totalling €1 billion spread over three years, from 2009 to 2011. Under this initiative, the regional programme IFAD-EU-ECOWAS Food Facility was established with a budget of €20 million. The regional programme covers a number of countries in West Africa.

To assure food security and protect the population from recurrent crises, countries dependent on foreign aid for much of their food supply, such as Benin, Mali, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, have designed strategies and programmes to support food security that are intended to increase food production through the intensification of strategic crops such as rice, cassava, yams and ground nuts, and widespread use of selected seeds and mineral fertilizers.

The Belgian Fund for Food Security (BFFS) was created by the Belgian Parliament in 1983 in response to the more than one million drought- and faminerelated deaths in East Africa. BFFS provides grants to pay for rural development projects, with a focus on food security and nutrition, in some of the poorest countries in Africa, helping extremely poor people to become healthier and more productive and lowering the risk that they will face starvation. 

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized United Nations agency, was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. It is dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries. Through low-interest loans and grants, it develops and finances programmes and projects that enable poor rural people to overcome poverty themselves.

What is the International Year of Family Farming? Small family farms are the key to reducing poverty and improving global food security. The United Nations declared 2014 the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) to recognize the importance of family farming in reducing poverty and improving global food security. The IYFF aims to promote new development policies, particularly at the national but also regional levels, that will help smallholder and family farmers eradicate hunger, reduce rural poverty and continue to play a major role in global food security through small-scale, sustainable agricultural production. 

The IYFF provides a unique opportunity to pave the way towards more inclusive and sustainable approaches to agricultural and rural development that: Recognize the importance of smallholder and family farmers for sustainable development; Place small-scale farming at the centre of national, regional and global agricultural, environmental and social policies; Elevate the role of smallholder farmers as agents for alleviating rural poverty and ensuring food security for all; as stewards who manage and protect natural resources; and as drivers of sustainable development.

This note highlights the lessons learned in supporting smallholder institutions and organizations. 

The Twa “Pygmy” of the Republic of Burundi are a small minority of around 80,000 people that self-identify as indigenous and are considered as such by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the UN system. 

This How To Do Note guides design and country teams in conducting an initial analysis of organizations and their capacity development needs at the project design stage. It provides a conceptual framework and practical suggestions and tools to help practitioners systematically collate and summarize information captured during design missions. 

Dans un grand nombre de pays en développement,
le changement climatique fait peser une menace sur la
base de ressources naturelles. Il accélère la dégradation
des écosystèmes et rend l’agriculture plus aléatoire.
Par conséquent, les petits exploitants, qui jouent un
rôle essentiel pour la sécurité alimentaire mondiale,
sont confrontés à des conditions météorologiques
plus extrêmes. Les petits agriculteurs subissent de
façon plus immédiate l’impact des sécheresses, des
inondations et des tempêtes, mais ils sont en outre
touchés progressivement par les effets du changement
climatique, comme le stress hydrique dont souffrent
les cultures et le bétail, l’érosion des côtes due à
l’élévation du niveau de la mer et les infestations
imprévisibles de ravageurs.

Under the 9th  Replenishment, IFAD committed to moving 80 million rural people out of poverty cumulative from 2010 onwards to 2015, and conducting 30 rigorous impact assessments. Hence the urgent need for appropriate methodologies for impact assessment. To respond to this need, a few piloting initiatives have been launched, one of which is the Improved Learning Initiative (ILI) 2. This  initiative  aims  to  develop  a  potentially  scalable  Participatory  Impact  Assessment  and Learning Approach (PIALA) that can help IFAD and its partners collaboratively assess, explain and debate its contributions to rural poverty impact. The PIALA design and piloting is funded by IFAD’s DFID-financed Innovation Mainstreaming Initiative (IMI) and BMGF’s Measurement, Learning and Evaluation Unit in the Agricultural Development Program; and with important contributions from IFAD’s Country Program Offices and partners in the pilot countries (Vietnam and Ghana), and its Strategy & Knowledge Management and Program Management Departments.

In February 2013, the First Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples Forum took place at the IFAD headquarters in Rome, in conjunction with the 36th session of the Governing Council. In attendance at this inaugural meeting were 31 indigenous people’s representatives from 25 countries in Asia, Pacific, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean regions. Of the 19 Asia- Pacific regional representatives, two were from the Pacific; Mr. Anthony Wale, the Executive Director Aoke Langalanga Constituency Apex Association (ALCAA), and Ms Rufina Peter, Senior Research Officer at the PNG Institute of National Affairs.

During the meeting the Pacific representatives highlighted the need for the Pacific to have a “separate identity” as per the outcomes of Asia Pacific regional preparatory workshop in Bangkok. The issue was one of visibility for the Pacific Region due to its unique, rich and diverse cultures and traditions, its significant land and sea area and its high biodiversity. The Pacific Regional meeting proposed three action plans, of which the Pacific Regional Workshop in preparation of the Second Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum at IFAD is a direct result.

This report proceeds from the Global Forum on Remittances held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2013.

Cette méthodologie entend promouvoir la participation active des chefs et des dirigeants traditionnels au développement humain inclusif dans les communautés rurales de Zambie.

L’approche axée sur les ménages a été mise en œuvre dans le cadre du Programme de soutien de l’agriculture exécuté dans quatre provinces (Centrale, Orientale, Septentrionale et Méridionale) de la Zambie, et a couvert 22 des 72 districts, dans 242 secteurs de vulgarisation agricole.