Press release No.: IFAD/59/08
IFAD's Executive Board concludes three-day meeting in Rome
Rome, 19 December 2008 - Poverty eradication efforts in 16 developing countries received a boost this week when the IFAD Executive Board approved more than US$197.55 million in loans and US$60.83 in grants.
"The agreement of the Executive Board to this package will enable IFAD to continue to work closely with national governments and partners to help poor rural people in these 16 developing countries build better lives," said IFAD President Lennart Båge.
"The rural poor, who are the most vulnerable to global problems like climate change and financial crisis, are at the centre of IFAD's work and we are single-minded in our commitment to do more and serve them better. The Board's support will allow us to do that".
The following initiatives will receive IFAD funding:
Western and Central Africa: $14 million in loans and $31.33 million in grants
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a grant of $23.33 million for the Integrated Rural Rehabilitation Programme will contribute to the reduction of poverty and food insecurity and improve the living conditions of approximately 42,200 households in Maniema Province. The programme will assist small rural producers, small breeders, women (including victims of sexual violence), young people, demobilized soldiers and marginalized groups including street children, victims of social conflict, internally displaced people, abandoned people, and people living with a disability or HIV/AIDS.
Located in the eastern region of the DRC, Maniema Province was severely damaged by war between 1996 and 2003, and the effects in terms of human lives lost, sexual abuse of women and looting have had serious consequences for the local population. The province suffers from chronic food shortages, very low incomes and little access to basic social services. The programme will focus on: increasing the incomes of communities by reviving agricultural production, increasing breeding and fishing activities, improving access to markets, and enhancing access to health care and drinking water in the most vulnerable areas of the province.
IFAD will provide a $6 million loan in the Republic of Ghana, to finance the first tranche of the Rural and Agricultural Programme in support of the Government of Ghana's efforts to improve the rural population's access to sustainable financial services.
The programme will strengthen institutional performance, outreach and client orientation in the rural financial system as a whole, with particular attention to agricultural finance. It will help increase the productive potential of smallholder farmers and give them greater access to technical assistance and risk management tools within the agricultural "value chains". The value chain is an organisational process which ensures that the worth of the raw product increases at each stage of the chain that runs from farm-gate to consumer. The programme will also help rural and community banks effectively serve smallholder farmers and rural poor people, their main clients.
To support the decentralization process of the Government of the Niger, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), IFAD and the World Bank/International Development Association (IDA) will co-finance the second phase (2008-2012) of the Community Action Program. IFAD will provide a loan of $8 million and a grant of $8 million. The Agricultural and Rural Rehabilitation and Development Initiative Project - Institutional Strengthening Component will complement the existing IFAD interventions in the Maradi region. It will help strengthen the ability of 56 rural communes, mostly in the region, to run local affairs competently, including planning, implementing and operating investments aimed at improving food security and quality of life at the household level. The project will also seek to reduce or reverse land degradation by promoting sustainable land management.
Eastern and Southern Africa: $67.9 million in loans
In the Republic of Kenya, a $5.9 million supplementary loan will help 500,000 people living in the six poorest districts in the relatively high-potential agricultural area of Southern Nyanza. The Southern Nyanza Community Development Project will reduce poverty and improve livelihoods for communities in the area which have high poverty levels, weak institutional and policy infrastructure, and a higher incidence of HIV/AIDS than the national average.
This supplementary loan focuses on improved food security, improved soil productivity and water development and management at farm and community levels. It is also helping farmers adapt to the increasing incidence of droughts and floods as well as to fluctuating food prices.
The most vulnerable and marginalized rural people, including HIV/AIDS-affected households, orphans, child-headed households and subsistence producers, in the Kingdom of Swaziland will benefit from a Rural Finance and Enterprise Development Programme. Supported by a $6 million loan, the programme will improve the effectiveness of rural finance institutions and the policy and regulatory frameworks, fostering an enabling environment to intensify entrepreneurial activity thus stimulating the rural economy, and providing smallholders, small processors and farmers and peoples organizations with more efficient access to credit and savings in the programme area.
The United Republic of Tanzania will receive a supplementary loan of $56 million for the Agricultural Sector Development Programme. The loan will further support smallholder development as part of the government´s National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty. The agricultural sector in Tanzania, comprising mainly smallholders, has significant growth potential in the production of most traditional export crops thanks to expanding domestic and regional markets and relatively abundant arable and range land. The programme will benefit poor women and men in rural districts living on less than $ 1 per day who have the potential to boost their agricultural productivity and incomes. It will also assist people most vulnerable to food insecurity giving them access to agricultural knowledge, technologies, marketing systems and infrastructure.
Asia and the Pacific: $68.8 million in loans and $27.3 million in grants
A loan of $31.9 million will support a programme in the People's Republic of China which will potentially reach 77,000 households in 720 of the poorest villages in Xinyan prefecture. In the area the vulnerability of the population, due to disease, natural disasters and lack of skills means many households risk falling back into poverty. The Dabieshan Area Poverty Reduction Programme will help increase incomes among poor farm households through various approaches to agricultural development and market access, which include support to the production of economic trees (tea, orchards) and medicinal plants, pig and poultry raising, fish ponds and a rice-fish production system. Xinyang prefecture produces high quality green tea, one of the top ten products in China, however manual processing is still largely used by tea growers. Mechanically processed tea can obtain a higher premium price, but growers need the knowhow and investment to make the transition.
A new project in the Lao People's Democratic Republic will be supported by a $15 million IFAD grant. There is a need to maximize the productivity of existing arable land, in an area limited by topography, undeveloped water resources and limited market access. The institutional and legal framework for sustainable and equitable management of agriculture and natural resources is weak; the policies and legislation are unclear; professional and technical staff lack training; facilities are inadequate and the livelihoods of local people have been adversely affected by land speculation. With this backdrop, the project will strive to enhance the institutional capacity at provincial and national levels. In this way beneficiaries will be able to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner, resulting in poverty reduction and improved market linkages. Main target groups are poor farming households and poor farmers in upland areas threatened by insecure land tenure, lack of access to markets and little awareness of their rights.
A $15.9 million loan will go to the Republic of the Philippines. As the world´s largest importer of rice, the Philippines was at the epicentre of the soaring food prices crisis that emerged in 2008. The Government has put together the Rice Self-Sufficiency Plan to regain self-sufficiency in production of this staple. IFAD's Rapid Food Production Enhancement Programme will focus on two key aspects of the plan: to secure good quality seed supply and irrigation rehabilitation and development. The programme is an innovative hybrid combining emergency assistance with a development project. In view of the importance of rice as the staple food of the Philippines, the project will target poor paddy farmers in Bicol, Western Visayas, Eastern Visayas and Northern Mindanao.
The Khatlon region is the poorest in the Republic of Tajikistan, due to land degradation, limited availability of inputs such as good quality seeds, and poor access to technologies. A $12.3 million grant will help to increase small farm profitability by providing organized groups of farmers with improved technologies and by financing productive infrastructure schemes. The project will work with 250 villages in five districts. Within these village organizations the 18,750 households will be mobilized into common interest groups based on Mohallas (an extended family grouping).
In the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, a loan of $21 million for the Pro-Poor Partnerships for Agroforestry Development Project will target poor upland farmers living in the three poorest districts of Bac Kan Province (Pac Nam, Ba Be and Na Ri). The province has the highest concentration of ethnic minority groups and the highest incidence of poverty in Vietnam due to its limited agricultural land and rugged mountain terrain. It has a large undeveloped forestry resource coupled with potential for livestock aquaculture and ecotourisim businesses. The project will focus on communities whose livelihoods depend on cultivating hillside slopes and collecting non-timber forest products. Greater equity in allocation of land, developing more sustainable hillside farming systems, diversification of income-generating opportunities are among the expected benefits.
Latin America and the Caribbean: $34 million in loans and $0.45 in grants
In Belize a $3 million loan will help poor rural people whose potential for growth is limited by lack of access to credit and other financial services. The Rural Finance Programme takes IFAD's previous operation, in the south of Belize, nationwide. Participating credit unions will receive a support package to help them expand and diversify their financial services, adapting them for poor rural clients. An estimated 15,000 poor and extremely poor people stand to directly benefit from the programme over a seven-year period. These include smallholder farmers, micro-entrepreneurs, subsistence fisher people, rural waged workers and indigenous communities, especially Mayans.
In Brazil, the North-East Rural Family Enterprise Development Support Project loan agreement has been modified to support government's ongoing decentralisation process.
The Sustainable Rural Development Programme for the Northern Region in the Republic of Guatemala, will focus on market access and the creation of small agricultural and off-farm businesses, through an $18 million loan and $450,000 grant. Some 25,000 households of agricultural producers, landless farmers, artisans, rural women and young people will directly benefit, while as many people again stand to gain indirectly from rural roads and social infrastructure. The programme will invest in communities currently not served by any development project and consolidate business activity and market access in the more developed zones.
The Orinoco Delta Warao Support Programme in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will seek to strengthen community self-governance and indigenous cultural identity while at the same time enabling community members to invest in sustainable livelihoods and obtain access to basic services. The aim is for Warao communal councils and communities to build the capacity for autonomous development, in accord with traditional values, including the power to form alliances for effective management of Warao ancestral territory in the long term. The Orinoco River Delta is a unique and challenging environment where small, dispersed communities confront serious threats to health from water-borne and vaccine-preventable diseases and where malnutrition affects one of five children. The programme area has the highest poverty rate in the country. A $13 million loan, combined with around $5 million of national funding, will allow the programme to work with some 250 communities with a total of about 18,000 people.
Near East and North Africa region and Central and Eastern Europe and Newly Independent States region: $12.85 million in new loans and 1.75 in grants
The Board gave approval for IFAD to transform the undisbursed balance of its loan to fund the Participatory Natural Resource Management Programme in the West Bank and Gaza into a grant. The programme deals with land reclamation and improvement, crop production and rural finance. The primary objective is to raise the incomes and living standards of small-scale farmers by developing and managing the land and water resources to conserve and enhance their productivity.
The Board also approved changes to the financing agreement of the Pilot Community-Based Rural Infrastructure Project for Highland Areas in the Republic of Yemen, allowing an increase in the financing approved for the project by $3.5 million, in the form of a loan and a grant, each of about $1.75 million. This supplementary financing will help the country cope better with the current food price crisis by allowing for the upgrading of infrastructure related to agriculture and food production and marketing, to benefit about 140,000 rural inhabitants. Approved in 2005, the project was originally designed to benefit over 300,000 poor rural people in the highland areas by empowering communities to address infrastructure constraints and be pro-active in reducing their isolation.
For Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Board approved a new loan of $11.1 million for the new Livelihoods Development Project, which aims to achieve sustained improvements in livelihoods in the rural communities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska, as their economies transform from post-conflict situations and prepare for European Union accession.
The project will promote the commercialization of smallholder production, commercial rural businesses and off-farm income-generating activities through the supply chain approach. This will provide an opportunity for developing stronger commercial linkages among small-scale producers, the private commercial sector and markets. The project will have a positive impact on incomes, job opportunities and quality of life of about 29,000 households.
Under the global/regional grants window, the Executive Board approved the following grants:
- The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) for the Strategic Partnership to Develop Innovative Policies on Climate Change Mitigation and Market Access for a total of $3 million
- An international centre supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) for a total of $1.2 million
- International Land Coalition (ILC) - Putting a Pro-poor land agenda into practice for a total of $1.15 million.
- Non-CGIAR supported international centres for a total of $6.05 million
Under the country-specific grants window, the Executive Board approved the following grant:
- Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific International for the Mainstreaming of Rural Development Innovations Programmme in the Pacific - Phase II for a total of $1.5 million
IFAD's Executive Board oversees the organization's general operations and approves its programme of work. It consists of eight elected Members and 18 Alternate Members who hold three-year terms.
IFAD was created 30 years ago to tackle rural poverty, a key consequence of the droughts and famines of the early 1970s. Since 1978, IFAD has invested more than US$10 .6 billion in low-interest loans and grants that have helped over approximately 350 million very poor rural women and men increase their incomes and provide for their families. IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency. It is a global partnership of OECD, OPEC and other developing countries. Today, IFAD supports close to 250 programmes and projects in 87 developing countries and one territory.