Brazil in focus

Interviews with IFAD Evaluation Committee members provide unique insight into poverty reduction, sustainability, South-South Cooperation and scaling-up

“Striking.”
“Innovative.”
“Synergies.”
“Involved.”
“Dedication.”

These are just a few of the superlative descriptors used by members of IFAD’s Evaluation Committee to describe their recent visit to Brazil. Concern over sustainability, replicability and scale also marked the cautiously optimistic feedback provided by the committee members.

On the week-long mission, committee members representing Burkina Faso, Canada, Holland, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Nigeria – IFAD’s board member from Sweden also came along for the ride – had the opportunity to meet with government representatives on the state and federal level, to interact with family farmers, to learn from project personnel and IFAD staff, and to actively engage in a well-rounded and well-informed dialogue on everything from knowledge management and South-South Cooperation, to the role IFAD should play in Middle Income Countries, environmental stewardship, and the importance of pro-poor policies and demand-driven development.

Rather than attempt to distil a week’s worth of work, conversation, sweat, debate, collaboration and learning into a thousand-word blog, we figured we’d go to the members of the Executive Committee themselves for their reflections on the IFAD-supported Dom Hélder Câmara Project, Brazil’s emergent policies for pro-poor growth, the role of BRIC’s in poverty reduction, sustainability, replicability, climate change and knowledge management. The informal interviews were undertaken in the field with our little flip-cam. And while the quality of the recordings doesn’t meet BBC standards, the candour and incisiveness of the reflections from the EC members representing Canada, India, Nigeria and Sweden are well worth the listen. Their responses provide unique insight into the synergies between Africa and Brazil, the relevance of IFAD in Latin America and the rest of the world, and the need to lay-out clear policies and platforms that will enable poor rural people to break the cycle of poverty.

Watch the videos
Amalia Garcia-Thärn – EC representative from Sweden

Iain MacGillivray – EC representative from Canada

Yaya Olaniran – EC representative from Nigeria

Shobhan Kumar Pattanayak – EC Chairman from India

Learn More
More information on the Dom Hélder Câmara Project

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US$4 million knowledge-sharing programme provides new hope for rural poverty reduction in northeast Brazil

English | Portuguese

IFAD Social Reporting Blog posts on Brazil

Postcards from Brazil

The IFAD Evaluation Committee participated in a series of high-level meetings and field visits in Brazil last week. This photo essay takes you with them from the highrises of Brasilia to the smallholder farms in Brazil's semi-arid northeast - home to Latin America's single largest pocket of rural poverty.

More photos from the mission.

Dom Hélder Câmara - Flexibility. Innovation. Sustainability.

In 2010, the IFAD Office of Evaluation undertook an evaluation of the Dom Hélder Câmara project in Brazil. The evaluation recognised the innovative content of the project and the strong impact on the empowerment of the target group, including women and youth. In this regard, the Office of Evaluation and the Latin America and the Caribbean Division organized a joint learning event aimed at disseminating the evaluation lessons learned and stimulating discussion on relevant development themes. This short slideshow captures the lessons learned from the project evaluation.

Photos ©IFAD/Giuseppe Bizzarri