How can Climate-Smart Agriculture enhance Food Security and Community Based Adaptation?

May 6, 2015, 12:46 am

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By Estibalitz Morras (IFAD) and Catherine Mungai (CCFAS)

We have just returned from Nairobi, where we attended the 9th International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation (CBA9). IFAD co-facilitated one session on Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) to achieve food security, increase resilience and enhance community based adaptation globally.

©IFAD/Estibalitz Morras

CSA is an approach that supports the more efficient use of resources; with less food losses and promotes a shifts towards more resilient smallholder farming systems. It links a scientific approach with traditional knowledge in order to create a sustainable food-secure population and enhance local capacity to adapt to climate change. CSA also has the potential to address some of the mistakes and shortcomings of conventional social and economic development that have contributed to social inequality, poverty and environmental degradation.

“CSA is often linked to new technologies that deliver an immediate boost to productivity or instantly show adaptation benefits – however this idea often bypasses smallholders, or has only short-term benefits,” said  Chris Henderson from Practical Action. “This is why we need to ensure CSA is relevant to Community Based Adaptation (CBA), especially to marginalized and smallholder farmers.”

In that regard, the technologies and approaches need to be: i) accessible; ii) sustainably used and iii) innovative, building on the wealth of local, traditional and indigenous knowledge and experience. Practical Action believes in helping small-scale farmers through technology to enable poor communities to build on their skills and knowledge to produce sustainable and practical solutions.

Integrating Local and Indigenous Knowledge

Based on his experience working in the Mekong Delta, through the Project for Adaptation to Climate Change in the Mekong Delta (AMD), Pham Vu Bang (IFAD Vietnam) called for the recognition and respect of local knowledge and involvement of community members in planning.This is the approach applied in the ADM projects supported by the  Adaptation for Smallholder Programme (ASAP) of IFAD.

©IFAD/Ilaria Firmian

Bang made the point that; to enhance the resilience capacity of rural poor communities, it is agreed that we should let vulnerable groups and communities decide the best way for them to cope with the impact of climate change. New technologies is certainly a part of the solution, but should link to indigenous knowledge and farming systems to promote biodiversity and culture.

The importance of incorporating local knowledge into CSA was further elaborated by John Mbaria from Kenya’s Nation Media Group  who recommended the documentation and sharing of such knowledge and the integration of traditional norms and practices into local government and national policy processes.

Lucia Zigiriza works in the ASAP-supported project  Post-Harvest and Agribusiness Support Project (PASP)” in Rwanda. She said that communities in Rwanda are involved in the planning and monitoring of land restoration, which feeds in to the National Strategy on Climate Change. Farmers are organized in cooperatives which monitor and share information. The project distributes climate information services to farmers such as weather forecasts.  PASP is also going to provide climate resilient storage facilities. Additionally the project creates access to solar driers, biogas fueled grain driers, and hermetic storage bags.

Monitoring and Up-scaling CSA

Monitoring CSA should not be about the rate or success of technology transfer – e.g. the uptake of new ‘adapted’ or ‘improved’ varieties. It should be about measuring the capacity of farmers and communities to identify, develop and use different agricultural practices.

Vijayasankaran from Samaj Pragati Sahayog in India pointed out that CSA is a holistic approach that requires multi-pronged investment and a multi-disciplinary approach towards participatory research. Water is the key to enhancing resilience of production systems to climate variability and climate change. Hence, public investment in water, especially low-cost solutions which could be taken up by smallholder farmers, lies at the core of CSA. While the role of private sector investments need to be emphasised, we need to recognise that scaling up of small, scattered initiatives on CSA is not possible without incorporating these into national government programmes with substantial investments sustained over a period of time.  

As a way forward, participants called for the up-scaling of successful climate-smart practices and services. This will entail a careful assessment of the barriers to the uptake of these practices by local vulnerable communities. Also, as mentioned by Caitlin Corner-Dolloff from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)governments, with support from non-governmental organizations, international agencies and research institutions, need to establish enabling environments, including incentives, to support community based adaptation through climate-smart agriculture. The pitfalls of existing programmes for food security and climate change resilience could be addressed by recognizing the vital role of CSA in ensuring access to and sustainable use of innovative solutions by smallholder farmers.  

For more information please see CBA9 session interview: James Kinyangi:  www.youtube.com/watch?t=12&v=w4c3UVOVwpU

The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the panellists from the Session 11 of the 9th International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation (CBA9).

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Farms without farmers?

May 7, 2015, 5:42 am

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Written by Caroline Mwongera, Postdoctoral Scientist in the Soils Research Area, CIAT.

Originally posted here

The next generation of smallholder farms in Africa may have no one left to run them.

A visit by a team from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in the Gulu, Kitgum, Nwoya and Adjumani districts of Northern Uganda – a region that was embroiled in more than 20 years of civil war waged by the Lord’s Resistance Army – presents an alarming scenario for the years ahead.  Here we meet more than 158 farmers and are struck by the sentiments of the older farmers.

In the Gulu, Kitgum, Nwoya and Adjumani districts of Northern Uganda the average age of farmers is 45. Credit: Stephanie Malyon / CIAT

Young people are turning away from agriculture to drive motorcycle taxis. Credit: Stephanie Malyon / CIAT

“The youth are not interested in farming. They prefer migrating to urban centers to look for off-farm work and engage in petty trade, mainly operating boda-boda,” said one man, who has been farming all his life. Boda-boda is a term that is commonly used in East Africa to refer to motorcycle taxis.

Separate interviews with a team of 24 local agricultural experts reveal that the average age of farmers is 45 and young people between 18 and 30 are disconnected from the farm and realities of agricultural production. For this particular region, it has negative impacts on post-conflict recovery, given the role of youth in rural community continuity and agriculture.

Another visit to Bagamoyo, Kilolo, Kilosa and Mbarali districts within the region known as the South Agriculture Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), confirms this story line. We speak to a group of 40 youths, who tell us that lack of social infrastructure and amenities lures them away from the villages.

Saidi, a 25-year-old man, explains the pull of urban life.

“Look at the life we are living here. We have been left behind by our peers in the cities. Life there is so much more glamorous and advanced. I would rather be struggling in the city with good paved roads, piped water and electricity.”

Africa already faces daunting challenges in achieving food security, and these are expected to increase with the rapid surge in population. But food security cannot be achieved unless the problem of a young population less interested in agriculture is addressed by policy-makers.

Can the entrepreneurial spirit of young people be  harnessed to encourage them to turn to agriculture? Credit: Georgina Smith / CIAT

This worrying trend is being seen across the continent. The latest Montpellier panel briefing paper Small and Growing: Entrepreneurship in African Agriculture reports on the disengagement of young people from agriculture, a sector that is often seen as outdated, unprofitable and plain hard work.

Africa’s transformation can be realised by harnessing and enabling the entrepreneurial spirit and skills of smallholder farmers, young people and women in the rural economy, according to Agriculture for Impact.

The CIAT projectIncreasing food security and farming system resilience in East Africa through wide-scale adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices, funded by IFAD, is promoting awareness and use of appropriate climate smart technologies in the above regions. Through demonstration trials, the project trains smallholder farmers, young people and women in particular in using site-specific climate smart technologies that will improve their farm productivity and income, with enhanced resilience to climate change, and reduction of greenhouse gases.

Young people taking up climate smart agriculture farming will no longer be able to complain of feeling left behind.
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The UN has declared 2015 as the International Year of Soils to raise awareness of the urgent need to protect the resource that feeds and waters us. Find out how CIATs global soils research team of soil scientists, ecologists and anthropologists are working with partners to protect and restore this vital resource.

Kenyan Comics and Flexi Biogas: New Media for New Technology

May 15, 2015, 2:46 am

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In Kenya, IFAD has matched an innovative new technology with an innovative new multimedia campaign. In order to raise awareness of new Flexi Biogas systems, IFAD teamed up with Emmy Award-winning Kenyan-based communication agency Well Told Story to reach young people and their families through comic strips, radio, and social media.

The partnership was made possible by IFAD's Initiative for Mainstreaming Innovation, funded by the UK Department of International Development, as part of a larger project called Making Biogas Portable: Renewable Technologies for a Greener Future. Flexi Biogas is a cheap alternative to traditional fixed-dome production systems, which gives more people access to biogas – a  clean, renewable energy made from organic household waste.

In order to increase the project's reach, IFAD wanted to find a way to share information about the advantages of Flexi Biogas and fight the stigma biogas sometimes faces. IFAD consultant Silvia Sperandini reached out to Well Told Story, whose work she first encountered at the 2010 Agknowledge Africa Share Fair. She was fascinated by Well Told Story's multimedia approach and wanted to incorporate it into an IFAD-funded project.

"We wanted to bring it to IFAD and pilot its impact on our development interventions because no one was working on this at a project level," Sperandini explained.

With their comics, radio shows, and social media presence, Well Told Story reaches millions of young Kenyans each month – a huge potential audience for IFAD's message. Sperandini designed this km/communication component  and it was managed by the coordinator of the Making Biogas Portable project, Karan Sehgal under the overall supervision of Antonio Rota, Senior Lead Specialist - Livestock.

Well Told Story worked to create a multimedia campaign highlighting the benefits of biogas in order to contribute to its adoption. By the end of the partnership, Well Told Story distributed 1.95 million comic books, aired three radio programmes on 26 FM stations, and hosted discussions on six social media pages receiving more than 80,000 views per month. Additionally, Well Told Story designed and printed hundreds of posters for display in local schools.

Well Told Story's programmes are immensely popular with young people, and the campaign generated substantial interest, as measured by the volume of texts sent to Well Told Story requesting more information. Yet the campaign did not immediately lead to increased sales of Flexi Biogas.

For Sehgal, however, that's ok. In his words, the goal of the campaign was  "to set the scene for the future." It can be tough to break tradition, he noted, and traditional fuel subsidies can make renewable energies like biogas less competitive. But with Well Told Story's campaign promoting both the practical and environmental benefits of biogas, young Kenyans may be more willing to adopt Flexi Biogas systems or support other clean energies in the future.

EXPO 2015: Let’s talk about microfinance and its impact on women and food security

May 22, 2015, 3:50 am

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Written by Maria Hartl, Senior Technical Specialist - Gender and Social Equity at IFAD

EXPO 2015: Si parla di donne

What is the link between food security, gender equality and microfinance? Participants at the EXPO Milan workshop on “Gender, food security & microfinance“, organized by the Fondazioni Pangea Onlus and Un Raggio di Luce Onlus, explored this topic on 13 May 2015. It was the first of a series of five seminars on “Finance for food”, sponsored by the Rete Italiana di Microfinanza RITMI and the Italian Sustainable Investment Forum (FFS). The aim is to identify and highlight the best practices in financing food security and sustainable agriculture, both at national and international level.

Panellists at the Finance for Food seminar at Expo 2015. ©IFAD/Ilaria Marcelli

In her opening remarks, Simona Lanzoni, PANGEA’s Vice-President and the moderator of the workshop, emphasized the women - food security nexus. She highlighted the importance of appropriate and context-specific ways to deliver micro-finance services to women so that they can contribute to the food security of poor families. To do so they need to be part of multiple interventions that complement each other.

“Is there a social dimension to food security?” Sabrina Aguiari (Tulane University Food Security Summer Studies) demonstrated how the concept of food security has evolved over time, from the World Food Summit 1971 to subsequent food summits in 1996, 2002 and 2009. She dwelt in particular on the four dimensions of food and nutrition security - availability, accessibility, utilization and stability. She also underlined the shift from a focus on the household level to the individual, which helped to highlight the gender differences.

Touching also on the right to food and the debate about food sovereignty, Aguiari emphasized the importance of a feminist perspective, in particular when considering women’s invisible and un-counted work in the care economy and in food production. In her view, women’s access to micro-finance should be seen in the context of the four dimensions of food and nutrition security. Each dimension required different financial inputs and services.

“Can women have access to productive resources to ensure food security?” That was the opening question of microfinance expert Smita Premchander who shared good practices and challenges from Sampark, a project in Koppal district, North Karnataka (India) of which she is the General Secretary. Formal and informal groups as well as individuals started income-generating programmes, established enterprises, and carried out other gender related activities, with the support of Fondazioni Pangea Onlus.

Women in 35 villages organized into 160 Self Help Groups (SHGs) and engaged in savings and credit activities. By regrouping 15-20 SHGs into cluster associations, they started to play an important role in designing credit systems, monitoring groups, auditing groups annually and implementing enterprise development activities. Women also registered as cooperatives. Premchander underlined the importance of savings, which enable women not only to hand out small credits to each other but also to take bigger credits on behalf of the clusters and then pass them on to members.

Paola Ciardi, International Consultant and Nepal Country Coordinator for Fondazione Un Raggio di Luce Onlus, reported about a project in Jumla (Nepal) with a focus on microfinance, agricultural development, food security and women’s empowerment. At the request of the community, the project trained female health facilitators, built water mills and restored drinking water systems, to lighten women’s workload.

In 2015, a special micro-credit fund for women was introduced. It includes a clause that requires husbands to sign a contract and agree to support women’s greater participation in decision-making. The project also trained 33 community gender facilitators (women and men) who monitor the project and have made commitments to promote gender equality.

Participants at the Finance for Food seminar at Expo 2015. ©IFAD/Ilaria Marcelli

In my presentation on rural microfinance and food security, I spoke about IFAD's experiences in empowering rural women through improved access to financial products (savings, loans, insurance, remittances transfers) and improved food security. Women make up a massive 72 per cent of the 19.1 million voluntary savers in IFAD-supported operations. My main message was that access to financial services must be linked to wider sustainable development processes including access to markets, value chain development, gender equality, strengthened local economies and political stability.

Overall, the expansion of microfinance since the 1990s has significantly increased women’s access to loans and savings, not only contributing to poverty reduction and financial sustainability, but also to a series of ‘virtuous spirals’.

First, increasing women’s access to microfinance services can lead to their economic empowerment enabling them to access significant amounts of money in their own right for the first time. Second, increasing women’s access to microfinance can increase household wellbeing (health, education, happiness). Even where women are not directly engaged in income earning activities, channeling credit or savings options to households through women may enable them to play a more active role in decision-making at household level. Third, a combination of women's increased economic activity and increased decision-making in the household can lead to wider social and political empowerment and gender equality.

Rural finance is key for agricultural production and food security, thus improving income, household food consumption and health. Women are important actors in agricultural production and food processing and preparation. Nutrition-sensitive agricultural programmes can channel investments into women-specific activities that have a direct impact on food and nutrition security and generate income at same time. These can include small ruminants, fishponds and aquaculture, horticulture and kitchen gardens and forestry products, just to name a few.

In the lively debate that followed the presentations, a number of important questions were raised:

• Why is financial literacy so important? Financial literacy is more than reading and basic maths. And it’s more than learning about financial products, interest rates and the importance of paying back on time. It is about managing one’s resources, having a vision on where to go and which goals to reach. That’s why the Gender Action Learning System (GALS) is an excellent tool to enable beneficiaries, who often are illiterate, to draw up a vision, set a trajectory and to take one step at a time. 
• How can we reach the very poor and most vulnerable? The Sampark project particularly targeted the poorest women who also have the least capacity to be able to give free time. Therefore, such programmes call for a lot of investments, by NGOs and donors, in terms of trainings and capacity building. At the same time, when resources are scarce, they also call for sacrifices from the women themselves. This means that such programmes need to be long term and well funded, and therefore can be only limited in scale. Matching funds and guarantee schemes are additional means to ensure inclusion of the poor, but always should be accompanied by training and mentoring. 
• Why is women’s empowerment such a long process? In the case of Sampark it took 5-10 years to reach some levels of empowerment, which are different for every woman. The ‘virtuous spirals’ of women and microfinance demonstrate how long it can take to change mentalities and perceptions – of the women themselves, of men, be they husbands, fathers or brothers; of mothers-in law and other relatives who have a say on women’s mobility and actions; of religious and political leaders; and in case of rural finance, of policy makers and stakeholders in public and private sector. 
• Why is the link to food security and nutrition so important? Women farmers and smallholders play a key role in agricultural production through their work on the farm, in the field or in the kitchen gardens. Women are also involved in food storage, processing and preparation. Access to credit or saving schemes, combined with training, can enable women to improve their skills in all sectors related to farming and food processing. Ultimately the greater availability of nutritious food ─ not only staples such as rice, but also vegetables and protein ─ combined with women’s improved knowledge about diets and food preparation will ensure greater food security, better nutrition of the family and reduce child malnutrition. 

Expo Milano. ©IFAD/Maria Hartl

Now to the EXPO. The workshop was held at the Cascina Triulza, a building on the EXPO site which was renovated and especially designed for use by civil society organizations. It took some hurdles to reach it. Although the EXPO had opened 13 days earlier, we were the first customers for our taxi driver to ask for this destination and he promptly left us at the back entrance. The long walk to Cascina Triulza enabled us to have encounters with huge crowds of school children and visitors and provided a good glimpse of many beautiful national pavilions along the way.

There were some challenges. Only a small group, most of them connected to the organizers, had gathered. Some EXPO visitors and school children ventured from time to time into the conference room, listened for a while and left again. Through the open windows, we could hear the truffle sellers go about their business and workers doing last minute work with their drills.

In conclusion, it was a pity that the event was not more widely publicized and covered by livestreaming in order to attract a larger audience. Ordinary EXPO visitors seem to have other priorities. Who would pay 36 Euros for a day pass and then sit 3 hours in a workshop when there is so much to see outside, the stunning national pavilions, the enticing food stands, the colorful videos and demonstrations? How many people would venture out from the centre of Milan, spend 30 minutes on subway and walk another 30 minutes to attend a workshop, even when in possession of a free ticket? To attract EXPO visitors, on site events need to be designed differently - short, with infographics or videos, demonstrations or simulation games.

For my part, I will definitely go back and visit the EXPO … at leisure!

Announcement: Regional Rural and Agricultural Finance Thematic Conference in Harare, Zimbabwe 10-12 June 2015

May 30, 2015, 1:46 am

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The African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA) and International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) grant project the Rural Finance Knowledge Management Partnership (KMP) in East and Soutehrn Africa (ESA) wish to announce their joint Regional Rural and Agricultural Finance Thematic conference on the theme: “regional experiences on knowledge sharing and networking in rural and agricultural financing”, to be held in Harare, Zimbabwe on 10-12 June 2015. The hosts of the conference include; the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, CBZ Holdings Ltd. and AgriBank Zimbabwe.

The conference will bring together approximately 200 participants from IFAD-funded projects in ESA and West and Central Africa (WCA), AFRACA member institutions, Development partners, Agricultural Investors, regional knowledge networks, farmer organizations, and other stakeholders within and outside the continent on a platform to reflect on knowledge management practice in the rural and agricultural finance field in the last 10 years.

The conference will focus on how knowledge sharing and networking has contributed to the development of appropriate, scalable, and sustainable rural finance systems in Africa that are needed to secure food security, improve rural livelihoods, and achieve economic growth.  It will explore the extent to which new knowledge and lessons from the new successes in rural finance are disseminated, transferred, and deployed in advancing rural finance. 

Furthermore, it will look at the various knowledge sharing and networking models/initiatives implemented by IFAD and other partners, and what role they have played in contributing to the rural finance in the region. An important focus will also be on what challenges, lessons, and best practices has emerged oover the years in as far as knowledge sharing and networking is concerned; and how KM practice can be furhter strenghtened for the benefit of development. 

KMP is a 10 year old project financed by IFAD. It is designed to simultenously tap inot and build its intellectual capital in advancing the field of rural finance. The partnership brings together collaboration and synergies that exists between various institutions involved in the promtion of rural finance in Africa. these include; IFAD suported programmes in ESA and West and Central Africa (WCA), AFRACA, AGRA, FAO, GIZ, CGAP and IFAD itself. This partnsership has since been institutionalised in ESA.

The KMP grant whose Phase III comes to a close in 2015, will be sharing its 10 years of experience in the promotion of rural finance in ESA. It is expected that the inputs from this conference will be used to define a new vision and strategy for KMP's Scale-Up Phase.  

You can make confirmation to participate in the conference online on our website www.ruralfinancenetwork.org

We look forward to meeting you in Harare Zimbabwe in 10-12 June 2015. 

Miriam Cherogony

KMP Coordinator 

mcherogony@ifadafrica.org or mcherogony@gmail.com

Climate Cinema: Take Four

June 1, 2015, 7:08 am

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By Yufei Li

Last Tuesday, ECD organized its fourth Climate Cinema Event, in association with the Think Forward Film Festival and the International Center for Climate Governance. Focusing on the theme of clean energy, five films were screened with a panel discussion led by James Heer from IFAD and Lorenza Campagnolo from Euro Mediterranean Center on Climate Change and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Italy.

The first film, Forests: The heart of a green economy, was adocumentary about the UN-REDD Programme. The UN-REDD Programme is the United Nations collaborative initiative on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) in developing countries. The Programme supports nationally-led REDD+ processes and promotes the informed and meaningful involvement of all stakeholders, including Indigenous Peoples and other forest-dependent communities, in national and international REDD+ implementation. Produced for the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), this film highlights the critical role of forests in combatting climate change as well as supporting the environment, the economy, and human well-being through REDD+ initiatives.

The second film was Kenya: Kid Power!, produced by IFAD in 2012. The film featured IFAD Mount Kenya East Pilot Project for Natural Resource Management, showing how children could change adult’s behavior and make a difference in environmental conservation. The kids at Kambaru Primary School in Kenya have planted more than 4,000 trees as part of a larger effort to reforest east Mount Kenya and restore much-needed water resources.

The next film, Black Inside - Three Women's Voices, was a documentary byRodney Rascona from the United States. Nearly half the global population still cooks over an open fire. Each year over 4 million people lose their lives, mostly women and children, from breathing the toxic smoke created while cooking over an open wood fire to feed their families. Black Inside presents the stories of three women from three continents - voices who regardless of their cultural differences or the hardships they endure, share the same aspirations of a better life for their children, framed by the mist shrouded cliffs of the Peruvian Andes, India's richly chaotic border with Nepal and the remote, drought affected arid lands of Kenya's northern deserts.

The fourth film was Brazil: Living with the land by IFAD. The North-East of Brazil is the most densely populated semi-arid region in the world. Low, erratic rainfall and recurrent droughts make farming difficult. For generations, farmers have resorted to excessive use of chemicals and slash and burn agriculture, stripping the soil of nutrients. The film focused on farmers like Irupuan Gomes who started to use bush management techniques to rehabilitate the natural ecosystem. Not only is the environment healthier -- but so are their profits.

Lastly it was The Windmill Farmer, a silent animation by Joaquin Baldwin. The film started with a farmer planting in the ground. Through the seasons, his crops were flourishing until a vicious wind destroyed everything overnight. Feeling disappointed and helpless, the farmer resigned to his fate when the thick winter snows arrived and nature started its process of rebirth. 

The next Climate Cinema will be held on June 23^rd, focusing on the theme of environment. 

A token of love to the IFAD Staff Help Fund from Nepal

June 5, 2015, 8:13 am

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By Lorina Sthapit 

25 April 2015. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake rattled Nepal, killing more than 8,000 people and leaving more than 1.7 million children affected. Overall damage has been estimated at nearly half of the national GDP.

That day I was at the Metta Center Children’s Home in Kavre, about 30 km east of Kathmandu. The plan was to spend a beautiful day with the 15 girls who live at the Center. The plan was to tell them about the proposal approved by the IFAD Staff Help Fund (this fund is an independent group organized in May 1996 to help finance, through private contributions, small-scale educational projects in developing countries). The plan was to celebrate!

The children at the Metta Center Children’s Home in Kavre ©IFAD/L. Sthapit

The girls were quite excited that day; dressed in their favorite kurthas, giggling and running around, humming popular Nepali songs, throwing me we-know-why-you-are-here smiles. They even insisted on preparing lunch themselves.

While we were waiting for lunch, I suggested that we sing and have some fun. One of them came forward and said she would like to sing a song so that I could tape it and show it to my friends in Italy. It didn't come to mind at that time, but now, revisiting the meaning of the song, the coincidence is chilling.

Marne kasailai rahar hudaina (nobody dreams of dying)
tara na mareko prahar hudaina (every minute somebody dies)
bhagera jau kun thau jau (where to run and hide)
manche namarne sahar hudaina (there is no city where people don't die)

After lunch, we talked about IFAD and the Staff Help Fund. The girls were overwhelmed to know that new books and computers were arriving and they would soon be able to study under bright lights after the solar panels were set up. They were even more excited when we told them that they could select five books each for the library. “I already know my list,” said one of them, “Harry Potter!” 

The children at the drawing table creating an artwork to thank the IFAD Help Fund ©IFAD/L. Sthapit

“We want to send something to IFAD as a thank you,” they said. And so we headed to the library, on the top floor of the orphanage. On a big piece of paper they started making beautiful drawings and designs. Seeing them work on it with such dedication and love, I told myself this will probably be one of the best gifts that the Help Fund will ever receive. But just when they were putting the final touches to the drawing and writing their names, the building started shaking and swaying. The crayons and pencils started to roll off the table, shelves started falling, chairs sliding, windows vibrating as if they were going to explode. We could hear strange noises that sounded like a bomb exploding. Terrified, it took us a moment to come to our senses and realize what was happening. It was an earthquake. And it was big.

We had no time to decide what to do next. Should we get under the table? Should we stand under the door frame? Should we just run outside? Do we have to get our shoes? What about the artwork? Should we carry it with us or leave it there? But there was simply no time. As the building started rocking violently, we hurried to get out of the building. But we could not even walk without stumbling into each other. Bricks started falling from above as we struggled to pass the entrance gate. It felt like the world was coming to an end and there was nothing we could do to save ourselves. After what seemed like an endless minute, we finally made it to the garden where others were waiting. I could see the tension in their faces, they were worried about whether we would make it or not. Everybody was pale and in shock.

The ground was still shifting. And before we could catch our breath, there was an aftershock. And another one. And another one. For the next hour we sat in a circle and prayed as strong and frequent aftershocks kept coming…it felt like the end was near…

Fortunately, I can report back that all the girls are safe. Life is still very unsettled, but thanks to the Help Fund, they are eagerly looking forward to choosing books for the new library.

Some weeks after the disaster, I discovered that somehow all the voices and sounds of that fateful minute was accidentally recorded on my camera. It gives me shivers every time I listen to it. While I can hear myself saying "thik cha" (it's okay) to the girls, I knew that nothing was okay and would never be again.

One month after the earthquake the Nepali people still live in fear of another big tremor – since the second powerful earthquake (magnitude 7.3) struck on 12 May and took away any sense of normalcy that the people had slowly been regaining. Things may gradually be getting back to normal for those whose homes were unscathed and whose family and friends unhurt, but for those who lost loved ones and whose homes are uninhabitable and are taking shelter under flimsy tarpaulins while searching for or building temporary shelters as the monsoon arrives, the future is still very dark and unsettled.

The artwork created by the girls on that fateful day to thank the IFAD Staff Help Fund is exhibited in IFAD's foyer.

Land governance for inclusive development, justice and sustainability

June 8, 2015, 1:23 am

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From 12 to 16 May 2015 the International Land Coalition organized a Global Land Forum, which brought together over 500 grassroots organisations, activists, local and international NGOs, researchers, multilateral organisations and government agencies from around the world in Dakar, Senegal. The Forum created particular opportunities for participants to learn from, and contribute to, land governance successes and challenges in Senegal and Africa. It facilitated dialogue to the highest political level on land reform in Senegal. Moreover, the global cope of the Forum enabled exchange across different national and regional contexts that allowed for not only identification of trends, but also the emergence of new perspectives and areas demanding common action.

Experiences from IFAD-supported projects were shared during various opportunities. IFAD’s Vice President, Mr. Mordasini, made an inaugural speech and participated in a plenary session on the future of small-scale farming systems. Mr. Mordasini stated that the challenge is now to scale up the implementation of land policy, and approaches for securing a diverse range of customary land and natural resource rights. He mentioned some general principles that apply:     

- The first one is that scaling-up the implementation of land policy requires political leadership and ownership, as well as transparency and accountability, so that the rights of the poor are protected even when they conflict with the desires of the more powerful.     
- The second principle is that there is a need for more inclusive business arrangements – such as contract farming or joint equity schemes - between the smallholder farmers and their business partners. Indeed, with more private-sector investments being channeled to agriculture, it is imperative that these investments are made in the form of mutually beneficial partnerships with the people already using the land.
- Thirdly, we need to address the significant and persistent data gaps on key dimensions of land governance and the realities of land management. Such deficiency seriously affects the quality and consistency of the land policies,  and the credibility of their objectives and targeting, weakening also the performance monitoring.
- The fourth principle is that we must more systematically share knowledge and experience across the continents. By sharing evidence of what has worked, and learning from what has not, we can accelerate and improve our scaling-up efforts.

IFAD organized two break-out sessions: one on inclusive business arrangements and another on access to land for young people. During the first session a variety of stakeholders from producers’ organisations, civil society, public and private sector shared their views on how to improve land administration systems and investment in agriculture so that the land rights and livelihoods of smallholder farmers, pastoralists and others are strengthened. Several examples of inclusive business arrangements supported by IFAD were shared, such as the Vegetable Oil Development Project in Uganda, the Participatory Smallholder Agriculture and Artisanal Fisheries Development Programme in São Tomé and Principe and a collaboration with Malibiocarburantin Mali and Burkina Faso.

The second break-out session identified transformative practices that promote inclusive development for young people, with a special reflection on the specific challenges of women and indigenous youth. The experience of the IFAD-supported Agricultural Value Chains Support Project in Senegal was shared, where an innovative targeting approach was developed through the ubiquitous and very cohesive village sports/cultural associations. Members of the latter are encouraged to prepare proposals for agro-related income- generating activities and submit them for project support. They are able to enhance their eligibility for support by accepting women and other vulnerable categories as full members. Over 4 000 young women and men belonging to 45 associations are receiving the financial and capacity-building support they need to become agro-entrepreneurs in their own communities, thereby reducing the pressures in favour of migration. Participants of the break-out session strategized collective actions for replication and scaling up in different contexts.

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IFAD’s Vice President visits Senegal

June 8, 2015, 8:15 am

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From 12 to 15 May 2015 IFAD’s Vice President, Mr. Mordasini, visited Senegal. Besides participating in the Global Land Forum organised by the International Land Coalition, Mr. Mordasini took the opportunity to meet several of IFAD’s key partners in Senegal. He met with different representatives of the Government, namely Mr. Papa Abdoulaye Seck, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Equipment, Mr. Amadou Ba, Minister of Economy, Finance and Planning and Ms. Aminata Ndiaye, Minister of Livestock and Animal Production. The Vice President discussed the performance of the ongoing IFAD-supported projects and programmes and congratulated the Government for its exemplary collaboration with IFAD.  Furthermore, he also met with  Mr Samba Gueye, President of the National Council for Rural Consultation and Cooperation, which brings together the main farmers’ and producers’ federations in Senegal. IFAD-supported projects in Senegal have been working with farmers’ organisations (grassroots organisations, unions) and will continue to work with them in the future to strengthening their capacity and support their professionalization. Finally, the Vice President met with the Country Team of UNDP, where the IFAD offices are hosted.

IFAD’s Vice President and Senegal’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Equipment

IFAD’s Vice President and UN resident coordinator in Dakar

After the meetings in Dakar, the Vice President travelled to Kaolack, a department in Senegal’s groundnut basis, where the IFAD supported Agricultural Value Chains Support Project (Projet d’appui aux filières agricoles – PAFA)  is being implemented. Here he visited several interventions that are being supported by PAFA.

Resulting from discussion between producers’ organisations, local government and other market operators during value chain, PAFA has supported the construction of several value chain development centres where agricultural produce can be stored and sold. Each centre has a storage place, a polyvalent room, a point of sale and toilets. The Vice President visited one of these centres in Keur Socé.

PAFA has developed a holistic approach to village poultry, which has proven to be extremely successful. The characteristics of the model are: (i) setting up farmers’ groups in a transparent and inclusive manner; (ii) technical training tailored to the needs of the beneficiaries, especially women; (iii) close technical follow-up provided by local extensionists; (iv) construction of henhouse with local material as a shelter during the night; (v) breeding local chickens that are adapted to the environment and farming conditions; (vi) vaccination and other preventive measures; (vii) production of feed by the beneficiaries themselves using local ingredients. During the Vice President’s visit, a service centre for village poultry, which includes a slaughterhouse and a point of sale, was officially opened in Fallou Sall.

Twelve market gardens have been set up and/or equipped with solar pumps, drip irrigation equipment and fencing with the support of PAFA. The capacity of the producers’ organisations is being strengthened and agricultural advisory services and are foreseen. More than seventy per cent of the producers are women and about twenty per cent are younger than 35 years old. The Vice President visited the market garden in Taiba Nianguène, where vegetable production is being integrated with fish farming.

To promote the consumption of local products, PAFA has trained more than 800 women and young girls in processing and cooking techniques using local cereals. Furthermore, hotel and restaurant owners have been sensitized to introduce dishes prepared with local products in their menus. A diner was organised to allow the Vice President to taste the local dishes produced and prepared by various farmers supported by PAFA.

Value chain development centre of Keur Socé	Market garden in Taiba Nianguène
Service centre for village poultry in Fallou Sall	Tasting local products in Kaolack

Collaborative initiative to outscale climate-smart agriculture

June 9, 2015, 6:40 am

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Written by: Leigh Winowiecki and Caroline Mwongera

Originally published here

“Stakeholders coming together can achieve more impact”

So was the message from 54 participants at a workshop aimed at sharing experiences about different approaches to outscaling climate smart agriculture (CSA) using prioritization tools.

Tor-Gunnar Vågen, ICRAF, explains landscapeportal.org, an open source platform to target CSA interventions. Credit: S. Malyon/CIAT

“There are a lot of people, national institutes and international organizations working with farmers in Africa. Many of them have developed their own successful tools and methods and all have valuable experiences from which others can learn. We are committed to come together more to share and learn from each other,” said Leigh Winowiecki, CIAT soil scientist and one of the event organizers.

The CSA knowledge sharing workshop took place on May 20 2015 with participants from CGIAR centres, NGOs, private sector and the Kenyan government, all gathered to interactively discuss and share pathways for outscaling CSA.

Collectively they showcased, discussed and shared over 14 CSA Prioritization Tools during a Tools Bazaar. The presentations showed that a diversity of approaches are being applied across a variety of scales.

For example, CARE International has developed a Participatory Scenario Planning (PSP) tool and CIAT has led the development of the climate-smart agriculture rapid appraisal (CSA-RA), both emphasize participatory approaches at community and district levels.

In addition, a Climate-Smart Agriculture Prioritization Framework (CSA-PF) by CIAT guides national and sub-national climate change and agriculture planning, and the landscapeportal.org developed by ICRAF GeoScience Lab uses advanced statistical mapping techniques on an open source platform to target interventions, for example through the  development of county-specific interactive “dashboards”.

We interviewed Michael Okumu, Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries, and Maurine Ambani, CARE International, about the tools they presented. Watch them here:

Supported by the CIAT-led, IFAD-funded project, “Increasing food security and farming system resilience in East Africa through wide-scale adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices”, the workshop expanded on the knowledge from the Kenya National Climate-Smart Agriculture Workshop held in Nairobi in 2014.

The objectives of the latest workshop were to:

• To provide an interactive forum to share methods, tools, and experiences currently being used and developed to prioritize CSA practices in SSA.
• To share lessons learned from implementing climate-smart/best practices.
• To explore opportunities for collaboration and funding.
• To explore better alignment where possible and relevant.

Interactive group sessions focused on what outputs different users would desire from a prioritization tool. For example, what type of information do Kenya County Governments require from a tool compared to what donors, farmers, researchers and National Governments want? The final groups session highlighted challenges and suggestions for outscaling agricultural techniques! The overwhelming suggestion was that collective collaborations across stakeholders is needed in order to achieve impact.

Specific outputs of the workshop include: 1) A better awareness of the current CSA Prioritization Tools and the development of a Tools Matrix; 2) Direct input into the CCAFS CSA initiative, 3) A joint publication on the use of prioritization tools for outscaling CSA in Africa.

PASP project training helping to reduce post-harvest losses at household level

June 15, 2015, 3:11 am

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By Viateur Karangwa

Simplified post harvest technologies at household level

Harvest seasons in Rwanda may be followed almost immediately by new planting seasons giving rise to two issues: 1) farmers may have to divide their time between harvesting old crops and preparing for planting new ones, and 2) the weather may be wet at harvest times predisposing harvested crops to moisture related quality deterioration.

To contend with the compressed cropping season, the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) has enacted a set of programmes to reduce post-harvest losses. Among them, the Climate Resilient Post harvest and Agri-business Support Project (PASP) has prioritized connecting business operators with financing institutions and creating awareness on climate risk management.

PASP has identified training, coaching and close follow up with farmers as an entry point before constructing post-harvest infrastructure. Stakeholders continue to discuss how they can coordinate their efforts to ensure PASP achieves its targets.

Following training sessions held on 24th December 2014, and continued coaching from PASP technical staff and agronomists from sector and district levels, farmers in Murama sector (Ngoma district), pledged to monitor each other to reduce the practice of drying beans on the floor, which exposes the crop to moisture and deterioration.

After the introduction of these disciplinary measures and improved post-harvest practices, members of the KOREMU farmers’ cooperative were able to go from 211 tons to 411 tons of produce sold to national markets.   

IFAD Lead Agency on New GEF Programme to Tackle Food Security

June 16, 2015, 6:28 am

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IFAD utilises many partnerships to ensure that it can achieve its goal of empowering rural smallholder farmers to achieve food security. Here we talk to Estibalitz Morras Dimas, IFAD's Environment and Climate Division's Portfolio Officer about a new IFAD undertaking.

Can you explain briefly the relationship between IFAD and the Global Environment Facility (GEF)?

For more than 15 years IFAD has been one of the executing agencies of the GEF. The GEF is a partnership for international cooperation where 183 countries work together with international institutions, civil society organizations and the private sector, to address global environmental issues. Together IFAD and GEF are working together in 42 countries, with a total portfolio of US$ 253 million.

What is IAP?

The Integrated Approach Program (IAP) is a new way of using GEF funds. For the next four years, IFAD will seek to produce multiple environmental benefits by working with a broad range of organizations and sectors. Currently there are three new "pilot" programmes addressing global commodities, sustainable cities and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa (led by IFAD).

In the case of the Integrated Approach for Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa, the GEF wants the management of natural capital - land, soil, water, vegetation and genetic resources - to be a priority in the transformation of the agriculture sector for food security. This program will support twelve countries (Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda) targeting agro-ecological systems where the need to enhance food security is linked directly to opportunities for generating global environmental benefits.

IAP aims to promote the sustainable management and resilience of ecosystems and their different services (land, water, biodiversity, forests) as a means to address food insecurity. At the same time, it addresses various barriers (policy, institutional and knowledge) to emphasize a shift toward safeguarding the natural capital that underpins its sustainability and resilience for food security in the long term.

The programme will adopt a three-pronged approach that:

1) Engages stakeholders across the public and private sectors, and across environment and agriculture to foster collective action and coherent policies,

2) Acts to scale up, diversify and adapt practices for a large-scale transformation of agro-ecosystems, and

3) Tracks impacts on ecosystems services and resilience to assess progress and enable more informed decision-making on agriculture and food security  on many levels.

Why is IFAD the lead agency for coordination of IAP Food Security?

IFAD throughout its African portfolio of projects promotes a "multiple-benefit" approach, building food security and climate resilience, through managing competing land-use systems at the landscape level while at the same time reducing poverty, enhancing biodiversity, increasing yields and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. IFAD is thus well placed to leverage support from its investment portfolio on natural resources management in Africa to scale up investments in integrated approaches for sustainability and to lead IAP-Food Security. Overall coordination of IAP Food Security will be the responsibility of IFAD, in its capacity as the lead GEF agency for the programme, and the GEF Secretariat.

Other GEF Agencies participating in IAP Food Security will be UNEP, FAO, UNDP, World Bank, Conservation International and UNIDO.

What is the next step for IAP?

The 48th GEF Council recently approved in June 2015 $116 million Program for Fostering Sustainability and Resilience for Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa. The total GEF financing of $106.5 million will be supplemented by $805.36 million co-financed from the governments, development agencies, foundations, international organizations, and the private sector

The detailed country design documents will start in the following weeks. It's expected that IAP Food Security will start its implementation around the last quarter of 2016.

 

For more information on IAP, click here

Why women need indicators: Spotlight on measuring women’s empowerment at the Milan Expo

June 17, 2015, 2:34 am

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by Clare Bishop-Sambrook, Lead Technical Adviser, Gender and Social Inclusion, Policy and Technical Advisory Division

Accurate evaluation of results and impact has become a top priority for IFAD and our partners over recent years but in the field of gender equality there is still a long way to go. To measure women’s empowerment in a meaningful way, data have to be not only disaggregated by sex but also to reflect the reality of women’s lives. 

In May, the Rome-based agencies participated in an Expo event organized by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation focusing on “Measuring the empowerment of rural women”. The event was opened by a think-piece on the key issues and challenges of measuring rural women’s empowerment by Marco Zupi from Centre for International Political Studies. Other panellists were from ACRA-CCS Foundation and AIDOS.

On behalf of IFAD, I reported on the Fund’s special interest in this topic in recent years, both at the global and corporate levels.

At the global level, we have contributed substantially to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) discussions around rural women’s empowerment. The need for active engagement drew on the experience from 2012 when the RBAs, together with UN Women and other agencies, set out to report on the progress of rural women against the eight MDGs.

However, there were challenges. Many of the data were not disaggregated by sex, yet alone by rural-urban dimensions – hence the information available was patchy and incomplete. More importantly, many of the indicators did not resonate with the lives of rural women.

© Alessandra Gabero

Women farmers are major producers of food and yet their efforts are regularly hampered by their lack of access to productive resources, inputs, technologies, services and markets. And it is about more than just the role of women as economic actors. We also want to know if there have been improvements in the quality of their lives, in terms of nutrition, health, gender-based violence and the use of harmful traditional practices.

This lack of valid, useful data spurred us on to play a more active role in ensuring that the new SDGs would reflect more meaningful change from the perspective of rural women, with a focus on economic empowerment, decision-making and voice, workloads and quality of life. We were active in the drafting of proposed indicators for SDG2 on Hunger, food security and nutrition, sustainable agriculture. We also ensured that rural women’s perspective was reflected in SDG5 on Gender equality and women’s empowerment.

At the corporate level, there are gaps in the data we regularly collect from the field. We are good at collecting sex-disaggregated data at the activity and output level: in terms of the number of women and men trained, who are savers or borrowers, or are members or leaders of various groups, etc. However, we lose the gender perspective as we progress to project outcomes and final impacts.

The gender team in PTA has been working with PMD Front office and SKD to fill this gap. We have adapted theWomen’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index(WEAI), which was launched in 2012 by IFPRI, USAID Feed the Future and OPHI. The index measures women’s empowerment in five domains, which can be grouped to tie in with the three strategic objectives of IFAD’s policy on gender equality and women’s empowerment (see figure below).

WEAI Dimensions of Empowerment	WEAI Indicators	Objectives  of IFAD’S Gender Policy
PRODUCTION	1. Input in productive decisions	Economic empowerment
	2. Autonomy in production
RESOURCES	3. Ownership of assets
	4. Purchase, sale, or transfer of assets
	5. Access to and decisions on credit
INCOME	6. Control over use of income
LEADERSHIP	7. Group member	Decision-making and representation
	8. Speaking in public
TIME	9. Workload	Equitable workloads balance
	10. Leisure

We have undertaken statistical analysis on various WEAI datasets to experiment with fewer indicators, fewer questions per indicator and the introduction of additional questions to capture dimensions of empowerment relevant to IFAD’s work. These revised questionnaires are being piloted in some ongoing impact assessments, the updates to the Results and Impact Management System (RIMS) and a NEN grant.

And why is there so much attention on indicators? A lot of work has already been done yet there is a great deal still to do in the area of indicators for women’s empowerment. This is because it is vital to find out the extent to which IFAD-supported projects contribution to gender equality and the empowerment of women. This is significant as an end it its own right. 

However, perhaps of more interest to an international financial institution such as IFAD and our drive towards evidence-based investments and policy dialogue, is the crucial link between women’s empowerment and improved, deeper and more sustainable project outcomes and impacts.

A special event will be held later in the year to discuss IFAD’s adaptations to the WEAI.

Panelists: Marco Zupi, Scientific Director CeSPI; Susan Kaaria, Senior Officer FAO / ESP* ; ValerioTranchida, Gender advisor for Operational and information Management WFP; Clare Bishop-Sambrook, Lead Technical Specialist (Gender and Social Inclusion), IFAD; Giuseppe De Santis, Food security and Food sovereignty Desk Officer, ACRA-CCS Foundation /Expo dei Popoli; Paola Cirillo, Vice-President AIDOS

Come and go around the world with Calle 13 and PROCASUR.

June 22, 2015, 10:38 pm

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find yourself in the others,
learn that we are equal
and distinct at the same time
that´s the adventure of life,
here are the smiles
of those that open new paths

What feels to be freed of territorial and cultural boundaries and make from the world our learning ground?

How to trace a path to happiness that starts with listening and learning from our own people?

Outstanding rural women and men, farmers, artisans, weavers, indigenous people, local authorities and youth leaders from across the south are our inspiration. Thank you all for sharing a life of efforts, for showing us the way that, from the grassroots to the top, we can change this world for better.

PROCASUR proudly present this Video inspired by thousands of local champions and the poetry and music of Calle 13, a talented young music band of Puerto Rico that interprets our journey very well.

Enjoy the smiles and the rhythms, and start walking differently. Today.

Share it, comment it.

With all our appreciation: La vuelta al mundo. 

Please click here for the video: https://vimeo.com/114770883

https://vimeo.com/114770883

IFAD Annual Report 2014: Cheat sheet

June 25, 2015, 8:37 am

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I’ve been writing an Annual Report cheat sheet for a couple of years now and people tell me they find it useful. So here’s the potted version of AR2014 key facts and figures.

These are the big numbers, correct as at 31 December 2014:

• 224 ongoing programmes and projects with an IFAD investment of US$5.4 billion and a total value of US$12.3 billion 
• 26 new programmes and projects approved in 2014 with loans, DSF grants and ASAP grants worth US$713.4 million 
• 64 new grants approved in 2013 worth US$51 million 
• The target of IFAD10 was agreed at US$1.44 billion. 

At the time of publication (June 2015), total IFAD loan and grants approved since 1978 were worth nearly US$16.6 billion and the programmes and projects we support had reached about 445 million people.

If you want the details behind those figures, or more information on the various types of cofinancing, disbursements or repayments – take a look at Table 2, IFAD at a glance, on page 48.

Here's the breakdown of the numbers region by region.

West and Central Africa

• 47 ongoing projects in 22 countries 
• US$1,076.5 million invested by IFAD in the region’s ongoing portfolio 
• 6 new programmes and projects for a total IFAD investment of US$157.8 million 

East and Southern Africa

• 43 ongoing projects in 17 countries 
• US$1,212.9 million invested by IFAD in the region’s ongoing portfolio 
• 4 new programmes and projects for a total IFAD investment of US$94.9 million 

Asia and the Pacific

• 56 ongoing projects in 20 countries 
• US$1,752.8 million invested by IFAD in the region’s ongoing portfolio 
• 8 new programmes and projects for a total IFAD investment of US$269.5 million 

Latin America and the Caribbean

• 42 ongoing projects in 21 countries 
• US$617.4 million invested by IFAD in the region’s ongoing portfolio
• 1 new project for a total IFAD investment of US$4.0 million 

Near East, North Africa and Europe

• 36 ongoing projects in 18 countries and Gaza and the West Bank 
• US$698.2 million invested by IFAD in the region’s ongoing portfolio 
• 7 new programmes and projects for a total IFAD investment of US$187.3 million 

Not just numbers 

The Annual Report isn’t just about numbers, however. It’s also about issues, strategies and stories. The Programme of Work chapter gives an overview of the current main priorities in each region and key areas of work with results. Pie charts for each region show 1978-2014 investments and disbursements by lending terms.

2014 was a busy year for IFAD on the international policy dialogue and advocacy front. The Major Initiatives and New Programmes chapter gives our main messages and achievements in areas such as the post-2015 agenda, nutrition, indigenous people and work with young people.

If you're interested in the details of all the new programmes and projects, all newly approved programmes, projects and large grants are summarized on the AR CD-ROM. We also give a link to projects in the pipeline page if you want to keep ahead of the game.

To see which countries we’re working in and where we have country offices, take a look at the map. And last but not least, read the stories from the field in the Programme of Work chapter and learn about our work on the ground.

Don’t forget, if you want more than this one-page cheat sheet, there are plenty of other options.

If you’re the kind of person who reads big fat tomes, you’ll want the full 174-page report (which includes a wealth of information and detail, including all new programmes, the Financial Statements and more). If you prefer something more succinct, try the 64-page print report. It has all the key info, the pictures, the stories and the graphics.

Shorter still are the Annual Report Highlights at just 12 pages, but still including stories and pictures. 

I’d like to close with a big thank you to the many people who have contributed to AR2014.

It’s a team as big as a film crew: the focal points who provide the info – coordinating input from their own colleagues, including CPMs and regional economists – and give feedback and guidance during drafting, those who write their own sections, the people who give us the numbers, directors who give support and clearance, the production teams in the four languages, the production coordinator, the editor, the photo editor, the sub-editor, the translators, the in-house and external designers, the editorial assistant, the proofreaders and the webteam. Everyone has contributed a huge amount and I hope you will all be happy with the end result. As usual, we’re launching the Annual Report on social media. If you want to join the conversation, take a look at our Facebook page and follow us on twitter with the hashtag #ifadar. Please tweet your favourite quotes and facts and figures to your followers.

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Remittances for development: progress and way forward

June 26, 2015, 1:10 am

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By Pedro De Vasconcelos, Manager of the IFAD Financing Facility for Remittances

How can we maximize the development impact of remittances?

This was the key question of the fifth Global Forum on Remittances and Development, which ended in Milan last Friday after four days of substantive dialogue and debates. More than 400 participants attended from 88 countries around the world.

In 2014, global remittances to developing countries reached US$436 billion, exceeding official development assistance by at least three times. The forum focused on how to leverage these funds for social and economic development in recipient countries. It is estimated that about 20 percent of the funds received could be invested in productive activities and small businesses.

While today there is greater appreciation of remittances by governments and the international community than ever before, there are still many barriers that prevent remittances from meeting their development potential.

Kanayo F. Nwanze, IFAD's President, opens the Global Forum on Remittances and Development. ©IFAD

The forum started with the warm-hearted observance of the first International Day for Family Remittances. 

In his opening, IFAD President Kanayo Nwanze reminded the audience that remittances are the largest poverty alleviation mechanism adopted by millions of migrant workers around the world in benefit of their families back home.

In her keynote address, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, speaking in her role as the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, also acknowledged the importance of remittances. "We should never forget that to millions of families in developing countries remittances represent their only hope for building a better future", she said.

Enabling environment to transfer remittances

Participants rallied around the need for more proportionate regulations and a more enabling regulatory environment for remittances. In particular, payments systems should be more integrated and adapted for transfers of small amounts of money.

The issue of de-risking was much discussed and will remain an area for future work. Money transfer operators and companies present at the forum called for the opening of a dialogue with regulators. De-risking is the closing of bank accounts of money transfer operators, which they need to operate, by banks due to perceived legal, regulatory sanctions and anti-money laundering/countering of financing terror measures.

Unleashing the potential of new technologies 

There was a wide consensus on the promise of technology to provide cheaper, more efficient and far-reaching remittances.

The use of mobile and online technologies has led to a transformation of the landscape for domestic remittances in many countries, for example in Kenya. Their use in cross-border transactions, however, remains limited and is hampered by the lack of international interoperability of mobile systems and of regulation harmonization between countries. The value of international remittances sent through mobile phones accounted for less than 2 percent ($10 billion) of global remittance flows ($542 billion) in 2013, according to the World Bank.

H.M. Queen Máxima of the Netherlands delivering her keynote speech at the opening of the Global Forum ©IFAD

Ensuring impact on development: financial inclusion is key

Public-private-people partnerships and dialogue with migrants and recipient families were the leitmotiv when discussing concretely how remittances can harness development locally.
The private sector is very key in that respect. By providing access first to savings accounts and then loans and insurance, banks and money transfer operators can offer millions of people the possibility to invest, develop their activities and start small businesses. Currently only about 10 per cent of rural people in developing countries have access to even the most basic financial services.

Participants discussed how to go beyond pilot activities and take proven models and scale them up to maximize development. The IFAD Financing Facility for Remittances is launching a call for proposals to that effect. Guidelines will be published in September 2015.

Costs can be further reduced

While progress has been made to reduce transfer costs in recent years, more should and can be achieved through increased competition and the introduction of new technologies. With a global average of about 8 percent, costs remain too high and are much higher in many places, for example in Africa.

Next steps

It was agreed that joint efforts need to be pursued to reduce transfer costs, to increase the use of new technologies and to improve financial inclusion. Particular attention also should be paid to the role remittances can play in the post-2015 development agenda and their contribution to the sustainable development goals.

The next global forum will take place in New York in 2017 to assess progress towards the goals related to remittances.

First awards for excellence in remittances and social and economic development

The forum closed with a ceremony to recognize practices that make a real difference to migrants and their families.

The FFR gave four awards for efforts to help leverage remittances for development. Awardees were: WorldRemit, the world’s largest mobile-centric money transfer service; Mame Khary Diene, CEO of Bioessence and a successful diaspora entrepreneur; the Central Bank of the Philippines which set up a Economic and Financial Learning Programme one component of which targets overseas Filipinos and remittance-recipient families; and the non-profit Asociación Mexicana de Uniones de Crédito del Sector Social (AMUCSS), a network of rural financial institutions and micro banks.

Policy engagement is key, but… how to assess its impact?

June 29, 2015, 6:07 am

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By Tomás Rosada, IFAD’s Regional Economist for LAC and Ed Heinemann, Lead Technical Specialist – Policy in PTA.

Policies have an impact on every dimension of poor rural people's lives. They shape economic opportunities, provide a ladder for people to climb out of poverty or can prevent them to make it to that ladder.

For IFAD, policy engagement is a core part of our business. It is the only way to create the conditions for larger numbers of rural people to move out of poverty, above and beyond the impact of individual projects.

IFAD-funded projects and programmes are increasingly becoming laboratories to test new ways of tackling rural poverty. When lessons and learning from our investment activities are scaled up and incorporated into policy framework at a national level, the projects achieve their ultimate goal and targets.

Policy engagement happens in many different ways:

• Supporting the creation and strengthening of public institutions working on rural development policies and rural people’s organizations
• Promoting fora for sharing experiences and concerns between governments, rural people and private sector players
• Operationalizing policy programmes at local, regional and national levels.

It is hard to tell when a change in policy will have a positive impact on the lives of rural people, and it is even more difficult to assess the overall contribution policy engagement. Yet answering these questions is key if we want to be able to assess our performance in this field.

Policy engagement: A central part of development work

Some days ago, IFAD hosted the event Assessing the Impact of Policy Engagement. This gathering provided a unique opportunity for IFAD and its partners to reflect on these questions.

IFAD’s Senior Policy Technical Specialist Lauren Phillips, – set the scene: "for IFAD, policy engagement is the process by which IFAD, and IFAD-supported projects and grants, work with governments and other national actors to create, reform, implement or monitor policies.

"The final goal is to influence policy (the combination of laws, regulations, institutional approaches and practices) and to shape it in a way that allows poor rural people to overcome poverty", said Phillips.

John Young, Head of the Research and Policy in Development Programme at ODI ©IFAD

John Young is Head of the Research and Policy in Development Programme at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a well-known British think tank. For him, policy engagement is a “central part” of international development work.

“Outright policy change is rare and the causes that lead to it are often unique and rarely able to be replicated.”

However, a number of frameworks and approaches can help to overcome conceptual and technical difficulties when it comes to assessing the impact of policy engagement. All of them involve developing a theory of change: a logical model or roadmap of how one envisages policy changes.

“The earlier and clearer you have your theory of change, the easier it is to check it against delivery.”

Review what works and what doesn’t

Ignacia Fernández, Lead Researcher at the Latin-American Centre for Rural Development (RIMISP), talked about a successful experience of policy engagement in four countries of Latin America. The IFAD-funded project Knowledge for Change has allowed RIMISP to set up Rural Dialogue Groups (GDR) in Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia and Ecuador.

The GDRs are fora where representatives of these countries’ authorities and smallholder organizations discuss how to create a political environment for poor people to overcome poverty. They have facilitated the adoption of policies in favour of family farming in the areas of biodiversity, adaptation to climate change and agricultural innovation.

Susana Márquez and Ignacia Fernández, first and second on the left ©IFAD

After three years of experience, RIMISP was able to set up an evaluation strategy for GDRs based on a model called steps of influence. Its aim is to identify which actors contribute to policy changes -and how.

“This has allowed us to learn more and better about which mechanisms led to positive outcomes and which mechanisms failed and have to be redesigned.”

Susana Márquez, Planning and Strategy Manager at the Unit for Rural Change (UCAR), Argentina’s national branch of the Specialized Meeting on Family Farming (REAF) illustrated some of their achievements of this policy dialogue body of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR, the free trade area formed up by Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela).

REAF has functioned as a political forum for representatives of family farmers’ organizations, academia, civil society and policy-makers from MERCOSUR countries to discuss public policies targeting family farming. REAF policy recommendations have been implemented at a national level, including both pro-family-farming legislation and financial support programmes.

Márquez made clear that REAF “has no crystal ball. Yet we know now some approaches work and some do not.”

And what does work? “The adoption of a strict methodology, the definition of clear but broad objectives and, above all, flexibility. To create policy engagement you have to be flexible, trusted by both governments and civil society.”

National strategies to define policy engagement targets

Óscar García, director of IFAD's Independent Office of Evaluation pointed to the Results-Based Country Strategies (COSOPs) as an essential pillar to build on policy engagement.

“The COSOP preparation process is where IFAD and governments agree on how they can collaborate to promote rural development. To evaluate what that collaboration brings about is impossible if we don’t know what we want to achieve.”

Left to right: Edward Heinemann, Óscar García, Paolo Silveri and Lisandro Martín ©IFAD

He also shared a proposed framework for evaluating policy engagement – one that recognises the complex policy cycle and the need to distinguish between policy dialogue, adoption, implementation and outcomes.

Lisandro Martín, IFAD’s Senior Portfolio Manager, reminded us of the strong correlation that exists between good policies and good project outcomes. “Thus, it is critical for IFAD to have a specific focus on policy engagement as part of its self-assessment system.”

Martín underscored that COSOPs are the natural space to capture policy engagement objectives and activities, but “we need to be conceptually clear as to what can be attributed to IFAD’s policy engagement and the outcomes and impact to which it contributes.”

As we closed this half-day event, the following lessons emerged: First, there is no single right method to assess the impact of policy dialogue. Second, and more importantly, every path starts by knowing where you want to go. Otherwise, is impossible to know whether you have arrived or not.

You can consult the summaries of some of the presentations made at the learning event Assessing the Impact of Policy Engagement:

IFAD-PTA: IFAD’s Approach to Policy Engagement

ODI: Methods for M&E of Policy Advocacy

RIMISP: Rural Dialogue Groups Policy Influencing for Rural Development

REAF: Lessons Learnt

IFAD-IOE: Evaluation of non-lending activities in IFAD’s operations

Rural smallholder farmers have big potential to reduce agriculture’s carbon footprint

July 8, 2015, 3:12 am

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Helping farmers adapt to the impacts of climate change can also significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions – which is good news for the planet and for future generations, says the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the CGIARResearch Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

Speaking at UNESCO’s Our Common Future Under Climate Change Science Conference in Paris, CCAFS and IFAD have released details of their latest research on what mitigation potential smallholder farming actually has. 

The study finds reducing emissions may not be as big a burden as some may believe. The Mitigation Advantage Report has found that mitigation could be another benefit of adaptation activities. The study, released today, examines IFAD’s portfolio of projects focused on making smallholder agriculture more resilient to climate change.

The Mitigation Advantage Report shows that thirteen IFAD-supported adaptation projects could reduce CO₂e emissions by 30 million tons. This represents about 38 per cent of IFAD’s target to reduce 80 million tons of CO₂e by 2020 under its Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP).

Whilst IFAD’s investments are focusing on the key priorities of rural poverty reduction, climate change adaptation and food security, the mitigation target set by the organisation shows how resilient, climate-smart agriculture can make a substantive contribution to the global fight to curb greenhouse gas emissions.   

“What this report shows is that smallholder farmers are a key part of the solution to the climate change challenge,” says IFAD’s Vice President Michel Mordasini. “With the right investments, smallholders can feed a growing planet while at the same time restoring degraded ecosystems and reducing agriculture's carbon footprint.”

IFAD’s climate change adaptation initiatives include improved agronomic practices, afforestation and rehabilitation of degraded lands. These practices help address farmers’ immediate needs, like dealing with unpredictable rains, and gradual shifts in crop suitability.

If smallholder adaptation can help reduce global emissions, there could be new opportunities, according to CCAFS Head of Research, Sonja Vermeulen.

“Currently over 90 per cent of public and private climate funds go to mitigation, not adaptation. For future food security it would be very helpful if the majority of the world’s farmers, who are smallholders, could access those funds,” she said.

IFAD is supporting projects in over 40 countries through its innovative climate financing mechanism, the Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP). Launched in 2012, ASAP has become the largest global financing source dedicated to supporting the adaptation of poor smallholder farmers to climate change.

Download the full paper at www.ifad.org/climate/resources/advantage/mitigation_advantage.pdf

Investing in rural infrastructure, transforming rural areas

July 14, 2015, 12:55 am

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By Line Kaspersen, Programme Analyst, Uganda Country Office

On 1 July 2015, the Community Agricultural Infrastructure Improvement Project in Uganda, also known as CAIIP, held its project completion workshop. We, at IFAD, consider CAIIP as a flagship project in the IFAD-funded Uganda portfolio. And this is because throughout its life cycle, the project was able to rehabilitate more than 5000 kilometres of District Feeder Roads and improve the quality of Community Access Roads (CARs).

Thanks to these achievements, in 2013, the project received the prestigious US Department of the Treasury award.

What made CAIIP a success?
To start with, the project benefitted from a participatory design and involved communities in the oversight of project implementation. This process culminated with handing over certificates to the communities. The participatory approach was successful in terms of targeting the rural poor people and in ensuring roads were rehabilitated accordingly to industry standard.

The award also recognized the partnership and cofinancing with our sister organisation, the African Development Bank (AfDB). In 2012, the project also received an award at the East and Southern Africa regional implementation workshop for the quality of its financial management.

Within AfDB, the project is being used as a model for  future investments in agriculture in the region, focusing on infrastructural development. One of our success criteria is the fact that CAIIP was scaled up at national level, where phase 2 and 3 are currently being implemented, and phase 4 is in design. Furthermore, CAIIP has inspired other countries who are now looking into designing and implementing similar interventions.

Within IFAD, the construction approach of CARs was scaled up in the District Livelihoods Support Programme, a project under the implementation of  the Ministry of Local Government and the Project for Rehabilitation of Livelihoods in Northern Uganda, which is expected to start later in the year. Other IFAD-funded projects, such as the Vegetable Oil Development Project, have benefited from the engineering experience in developing farm and community roads.

Awards were given for best performing districts and for good planning and timely completion of works. For example, two neighbouring districts who planned to build a road close to each other, thus linking their respective communities, also received an award.

In providing rural infrastructure, CAIIP helped the communities to extend their access within the rural area, reduce transport costs for passenger and operating costs of vehicles by half. The implementation of rural roads has allowed farmers to increase by 13% the volume of marketed staples. CAIIP also addressed one of the challenges facing smallholder farmers – namely, reducing post-harvest loss – which led to a 30% increase in  income for farmers, earning as much as 200,000 Uganda shillings (USD 66) more per month.

Within IFAD, the project was selected as an IFAD10 impact evaluation and providing a sound basis for scaling up.

CAIIP is an excellent example highlighting the important role  roads and infrastructure have in transforming rural areas in the region.

Striving for Gender Balance: How IFAD can achieve gender balance in its management?

July 21, 2015, 2:44 am

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By Andrea Luciani and Wanessa Marques Silva, Office of the President and Vice-President

A recent meeting of IFAD’s Thematic Group on Gender addressed a very pertinent issue for UN workers, especially women: how can IFAD achieve a gender-balanced management structure?

Chitra Deshpande, a member of the 2014 Global Staff Survey Project Charter Team on "Leadership and People Management", set the scene: "IFAD is doing a good job in gender mainstreaming overall and compared to other UN-agencies. However, we still have work to do".

IFAD and UN: Percentage of women staff by level (Jan-Dec 2013) Source: Annual Report on IFAD Policy on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (2014)

IFAD has been striving to achieve the target of 35 per cent of women at the Professional level 5 (P-5) and above  – yet only once reached above 30 per cent in 2013. The figure has persisted at around 29-30 per cent, and in the last quarter of 2014 it fell to its lowest point: 26 per cent.

Across the UN system the goal is even more challenging: gender parity (50 per cent) at P-4 and above. The current data show that women account for 37 per cent of P-4 and above positions in IFAD. 

Why is this so challenging in IFAD? Currently 99 of the over 500 IFAD staff members are in P-5 and above positions. Many are found in the Programme Management Department where over 60 staff members at P-5 and above, yet only 13 are women. This low number may partly be explained by the nature of the work of country programme managers, which requires regular travelling.

Why this continuing interest in meeting the target? The reason is simple: women in management make a difference. According to a study published in the 2012 Harvard Business Review, which interviewed over 16,000 male and female leaders, women are more effective than men in leadership positions (ranking 55 per cent versus 52 per cent of overall leadership effectiveness respectively). Furthermore, filling the gap with more women introduces different views and ways of management into an organization. The study also indicated that a higher presence of women at management level can establish a positive cycle of hiring more women and promoting women to higher positions.

Recently, IFAD has introduced a number of initiatives to overcome this challenge, including: setting gender and diversity quotas in the latter stages of the recruitment process; providing training in gender-sensitive interviewing techniques; and mainstreaming gender and diversity into human resources policies. In addition a Gender Action Plan for the IFAD Workplace is being drafted. The initiatives have already shown results: 38 per cent of D-1 posts are now held by women.

The participants in the meeting, over 40 people from different departments of IFAD, proposed other initiatives to address three main issues: internal promotion, the selection of candidates, and the expansion of the pool of candidates in order to attract more qualified female applicants.

For internal promotion, the proposal to enhance the skills of women working in P-1 to P-4 positions was very much supported. A detailed proposal for the creation of an IFAD mentoring programme was discussed, as well as the importance of providing internal candidates with feedback from the recruitment process. Another proposal was for IFAD to host the CGIAR Women’s Leadership programme in Rome. 

For the selection process, the increasing use of anonymous written tests for pre-screening candidates was supported. Another suggestion was to remove the age, name and sex from Personal History Forms when preparing a shortlist of candidates.

To expand the pool of female candidates, proposals included using search firms to identify qualified women, improving women’s work-life balance by promoting flexible working arrangements, and expanding the pool of development specialists through hiring senior female consultants.

Adolfo Brizzi, Director of IFAD’s Policy and Technical Advisory Division, reminded participants that generally for P-5 and above positions, women candidates make up less than 30 per cent of the applicants and this tends to be reflected throughout the entire selection process.

It was clear to the participants that achieving a gender-balanced management structure needs to be an IFAD priority and is essential to make significant strides in gender mainstreaming. The outcomes of the meeting provided a solid basis upon which to overcome the current gap in P-5 and above positions. Given the commitment and enthusiasm demonstrated at the meeting, we are already far ahead!