Sunday, November 15, 2009

IFAD and the Islamic Development Bank reach a landmark cofiancing agreement

On the eve of the World Summit on Food Security, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB) have reached a groundbreaking US$1.5 billion framework cofinancing agreement that will strengthen their 30-year collaboration in supporting the world’s poorest people in common member countries. The agreement – the result of talks held in Rome today between Ahmad Mohamed Ali, President of IsDB, and Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD – comes at a critical moment, when the international community has recognized that agricultural development is fundamental to feeding the world’s population. Today, sustained investment in agriculture – especially smallholder agriculture – is acknowledged as the key to food security.

Using their own resources, IFAD and IsDB will jointly finance priority projects in most of the 52 common member countries under their respective three-year lending programmes for 2010-2012. The two institutions hope that this cofinancing arrangement will attract additional funding from other development partners for joint interventions. With their shared objectives in the field of agriculture and rural development, the two institutions will focus their efforts on increasing productivity, yields, processing capacities and access to markets. Microfinance, combined with capacity-building and technology transfer, will enable hundreds of thousands of project beneficiaries to undertake a multitude of microenterprises and income-generating activities. IFAD and IsDB are committed to working together to improve rural infrastructure, promote local economic development and enhance food security.

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