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| International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) |
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| The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations, was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. The Conference was organized in response to the food crises of the early 1970s that primarily affected the Sahelian countries of Africa. The conference resolved that "an International Fund for Agricultural Development should be established immediately to finance agricultural development projects primarily for food production in the developing countries". One of the most important insights emerging from the conference was that the causes of food insecurity and famine were not so much failures in food production, but structural problems relating to poverty and to the fact that the majority of the developing world’s poor populations were concentrated in rural areas. |
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| IFAD is dedicated to eradicating rural poverty in developing countries. Seventy-five per cent of the world's poorest people - 800 million women, children and men - live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods. |
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| Working with rural poor people, governments, donors, non-governmental organizations and many other partners, IFAD focuses on country-specific solutions, which can involve increasing rural poor peoples' access to financial services, markets, technology, land and other natural resources. |
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| IFAD's Strategic Framework for 2007-2010 |
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IFAD's activities are guided by the Strategic Framework for IFAD 2007-2010: Enabling the rural poor to overcome poverty. |
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| Goal |
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| IFAD's goal is to empower poor rural women and men in developing countries to achieve higher incomes and improved food security. |
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| Objectives |
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| IFAD will ensure that poor rural people have better access to, and the skills and organization they need to take advantage of: |
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- Natural resources, especially secure access to land and water, and improved natural resource management and conservation practices
- Improved agricultural technologies and effective production services
- A broad range of financial services
- Transparent and competitive markets for agricultural inputs and produce
- Opportunities for rural off-farm employment and enterprise development
- Local and national policy and programming processes
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| All of IFAD's decisions - on regional, country and thematic strategies, poverty reduction strategies, policy dialogue and development partners - are made with these principles and objectives in mind. As reflected in the strategic framework, IFAD is committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, in particular the target to halve the proportion of hungry and extremely poor people by 2015. |
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| Working in partnership to eradicate rural poverty |
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| Through low-interest loans and grants, IFAD works with governments to develop and finance programmes and projects that enable rural poor people to overcome poverty themselves. |
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| Since starting operations in 1978, IFAD has invested more than US$ 9.6 billion in 738 projects and programmes that have reached more than 300 million poor rural people. |
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But this represents only part of the total investment in IFAD projects and programmes. In the past 29 years, a further US$ 16.2 billion in cofinancing was contributed by partners. |
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| Governments and other financing sources in recipient countries, including project participants, contributed US$9.1 billion, and multilateral, bilateral and other donors provided another US$7.1 billion in cofinancing. |
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| This represents a total investment of about US$ 25.7 billion, and means that for every dollar IFAD invested, it was able to mobilize almost two dollars in additional resources. |
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| IFAD tackles poverty not only as a lender, but also as an advocate for rural poor people. Its multilateral base provides a natural global platform to discuss important policy issues that influence the lives of rural poor people, as well as to draw attention to the centrality of rural development to meeting the Millennium Development Goals. |
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To know more about IFAD |
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