Farmers’ Forum panel: Livestock keepers cope with environmental and social challenges

By Ilaria Firmian and Sundeep Vaid

This side event, held yesterday as part of the Farmers’ Forum at IFAD, was proposed by four members of Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (VSF) Europa. VSF is a network of nine non-governmental organizations dealing with animal health, livestock production and development.

The room was packed to capacity with representatives of farmers’ organizations and NGOs debating the role of these organizations in supporting their members – especially small-scale livestock keepers. Participants also discussed how they could ensure sustainable production whilst coping with climate change, thus contributing to food security.

Antonio Rota, IFAD Senior Technical Advisor, Farming Systems and Livestock, opened the session. He reminded the participants that, to date, much has been said about the effects of climate change on livestock, but added that he wished to hear more about tangible actions that were being taken to address the issue.

Alessandro Broglia, President of VSF Europa, said his organization believes strongly in food sovereignty and briefly presented their experience with small-scale livestock in the context of climate change. Reflecting on the demand side of the world’s food problems, he described the alarming levels of obesity prevalent today. “We choose the food that we eat and how much we eat,” he said. “What we need are not only small-scale livestock keepers but also small-scale thinking consumers who can drive changes in the market.”

During the discussions, a shared view of the impact of climate change on small-scale livestock keepers started to take shape.

Marta Guadalupe Rivera Ferre of Centro de Investigación en Economía y Desarrollo Agroalimentario, based in Barcelona, spoke of adaptation strategies and future scenarios. One the one hand, livestock contributes to greenhouse gas emission, she said, but on the other, climate change causes serious problems for smallholders: reduced water availability, extreme weather events and increased pests, just to name a few.

Climate change also causes loss of local vegetation. As medicinal herbs that livestock keepers use to treat their animals start vanishing, traditional knowledge is lost.

In the debate that followed, some examples of good practices in livestock production came up.

Oumou Khairy Diallo of the Senegalese development organization CNCR outlined the benefits of biogas to women in cooking. Antonio Rota said similar results are witnessed in our projects and noted that he would like to see IFAD become a champion of biogas.

Taghi Farvar, of CENESTA in Iran, gave the indigenous and mobile pastoralists’ perspective, saying that some strategies’, such as biogas, are not easily applicable to mobile nomadic pastoralists – who, however, play a key role in maintaining natural resources and biodiversity, and help fight climate change.

Andrea Ferrante of Via Campesina chose to speak on a different tack. He emphasized that small-scale livestock farming is not the problem but the solution to climate change. As highlighted many times during the Farmers’ Forum, farmers have sustainable solutions. The challenge is how to scale up such solutions.

A set of key policy recommendations came out as a result of this session, as seen in the picture at left.

At one point in the session, the participant from Cambodia offered this anecdote: “Before, when we weren’t using biogas, a husband comes home hungry and if the wife hadn’t had the time to collect firewood for cooking, this would lead to a fight in the family. Now we don’t have this problem with biogas. In this way, biogas is tackling domestic violence!”

Celebrating and rewarding motivated and inspiring colleagues

Those of you familiar with Italian culture know that the superstitious are wary of Friday the 17th, because they believe it brings bad luck. Well, hate to break the news – but we at IFAD survived Friday 17th with flying marks. Here is a brief run-down of our Friday the 17th experience.

Presenting the Rural Poverty Report 2011 in Rome
As part of the Rural Poverty Report 2011 roll out, on Friday 17 December, we organized a high-level panel discussion at Tempio di Adriano to discuss the report’s themes and findings.

Our very own Mylene Kherallah, a graceful and eloquent mistress of ceremony, welcomed the over 150 participants to the event. Kherallah reminded the audience that the Rural Poverty Report 2011 provides a coherent and comprehensive look at rural poverty, its global consequences and the prospects for eradicating it.

IFAD President, Dr Kanayo Nwanze, taking the floor presented an overview of the report’s themes, findings and recommendations. In his statement, the President highlighted the two significant threats facing the poor rural people: food price volatility and climate change. Nwanze also talked about the profound changes that are happening in rural areas – changes that are bringing new opportunities for progress in the effort to eradicate rural poverty and ensure global food security for decades to come.

Following Dr Nwanze’s statement, a panel of eminent experts in rural poverty and food security moderated by Marta Dassu, Director-General for International Activities at the Aspen Institute Italia, featuring Hafez Ghanem, Assistant Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; Uma Lele, an agricultural economist and former senior advisory to the World Bank; John Sender, Emeritus Professor of Economics, School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and Kevin Cleaver, Associate Vice-President for Programmes at IFAD, shared their views on the themes raised in the Rural Poverty Report and engaged in a compelling conversation with the audience.

Mylene concluding the event highlighted that for IFAD, the high level of interest in the Rural Poverty Report 2011 is a validation of our work, and it inspires us to re-double our efforts to eradicate rural poverty.

When we left Tempio di Adriano around 12:45, we were welcomed by an unusual phenomena for Rome. Talk about climate change – it was snowing. We get a lot of rain in Rome, but snow in Rome, is like having snow in the desert – a rare event and one that never fails to put a smile on everyone’s face.

IFAD staff awards
Later that same afternoon the IFAD staff awards ceremony concluded the week on a celebratory note. This programme recognizes the achievements and accomplishments of colleagues who as individual or as teams ― have made outstanding contributions as:

• leader
• designer or implementer of an innovative or outstanding project within IFAD or in a member country
• effective agent and facilitator of change

What is special and what makes this awards programme different from others is the fact that the nominations come from STAFF. Colleagues nominate colleagues and reward their actions and behaviours because they have done something special.

The IFAD awards programme was informed by Daniel Pink’s paradigm. Pink argues that “the secret to high performance and satisfaction is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world”. Inspired by Pink’s thinking, the IFAD award committee composed of Shyam Khadka, Mylene Kherallah, Marie-Paulette Duhart, Maria-Elena Mangiafico, Henock Kifle and Carla Ferreira, in reviewing the nominations, focused on rewarding motivation and more specifically the three elements of true motivation - autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Pink defines these three elements as follows:

• autonomy, the desire to direct our own lives
• mastery, the desire to continually improve at something that matters
• purpose, the desire to do things in service of something larger than ourselves.

I believe that at IFAD we have space to be creative and inventive. It is up to us as individuals to take advantage of this opportunity and do something special. Yes - we have bureaucracy, yes - every once in a while we may experience a setback, but at the end of it all, if we want, we can bring about change; if we want, we can think out of the box; if we want, we can build something special; if we want, we can put our creativity to good use and if we want, we can continuously improve and do bigger and better things.

It was heart-warming to hear Henock Kifle, Chief Development Strategist and the chairperson of the awards committee reporting that the committee had received  60 nominations. It was even more heart-warming to hear that 14 colleagues were nominated under leadership category, 20 for designing and implementing outstanding projects and 26 for agent and facilitators of change.

And when Henock started reading the awardees under leadership category and read out the first name – Roberto Haudry – the entire plenary hall broke in a warm applause.

Roberto was recognized for pioneering and leading highly successful innovations during his long career at IFAD such as his trailblazing role as the first Country Programme Manager (CPM) to be outposted. Similarly, the “Learning Routes” initiative pioneered by Roberto have helped thousands of farmers, rural community leaders and government officials to exchange knowledge, information and experiences through visits to each other’s projects where they see first-hand what can be achieved.

Roberto is a great innovator, a hard worker and someone who never gives up. Thanks to all these qualities, he has led the design and supervision of projects that have produced outstanding results ― achieving the highest average score in management's self evaluations.

The second awardee in the leadership category was Henning Pederson. Henning stands out for his leadership capabilities in developing a country programmes and projects which are on the cutting edge of development practice, particularly in rural finance and value chain development. Henning was also singled out for his inspiring and empowering management style and as an outstanding mentor.

And to prove this very point, it was not too much of a surprise, that one of his mentees – Omer Zafar and the Yemen country team –received an award outstanding project category.

The Yemen country team led by Omer and composed of Dr. Fathia Bahran, Country Programme Officer,  Nicole Hervieu and Jessica Lattughi were recognized for having completely transformed the Yemen portfolio from one that was based on a hand-out approach, to one based on creating sustainable economic opportunities that empower poor rural men and women.

The new project designs for Yemen have been so highly regarded by other donors, including the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the European Union, that they have together invested almost double the amount that IFAD has put it. The World Bank has also expressed interest in investing and the IsDB has recently announced that it stands ready to contribute over US$ 100 million to the forthcoming Yemen project, which focuses on rural employment generation.

The next awardee in the outstanding project category was Edward Heinemann, the Rural Poverty Report 2011 team leader. Ed was recognized for his outstanding efforts to finalize IFAD’s flagship publication.

Work on the report started in late 2007 and, while much preparation was done, it became clear in 2009 that the project was losing momentum. In July 2009 senior management asked Ed to take over responsibility for the report.

Ed, assisted by Bettina Prato rolled up his sleeves and started to draft and re-drafted the report several times with support and contributions from IFAD colleagues and external reviewers, producing the excellent report that we have today.

Although only released ten days ago, those of you who follow this blog know that the Report has already received wide praise and is being recognized as one of the most comprehensive studies on the dynamics of rural poverty. A distinctive feature of the report is that it gives a human face to rural poverty through the personal narratives of ordinary poor rural people around the globe. It also advocates a number of important policy measures to tackle rural poverty. These will undoubtedly give impetus and drive the efforts of governments in developing countries and the international community to enhance national and global food security.

The first award in the agent and facilitator of change category went to the Farmer’s Forum Team coordinated by Jean-Philippe Audinet. The team included:

• Philippe Remy
• Roberto Longo
• Carla De Donato
• Sandra Di Rienzo
• Gisella Barbieri
• Natalia Espinel
• Sylvia Isaia
• Vincent Sineau

The team was recognized for its outstanding work in developing the Farmers’ Forum and creating a strong relationship between IFAD and farmers’ organizations across the developing world.

Their efforts has led to the organizing the Farmers’ Forum every two years to coincide with the meetings of the Governing Council. In 2010 the Forum featured a special session to promote women’s leadership in farmers’ and rural producers’ organizations. Thanks to the work of the Farmers’ Forum team, IFAD has also continued to support global and regional farmers’ organizations in developing countries. And through their work, IFAD has managed to amplify the voices of the rural poor in various global fora.

The second awardee in the agent and facilitator of change was yours truly – Roxanna Samii. Those who follow this blog will remember that in February 2010 we used a number of social media and web2.0 tools to report live from the Farmers’ Forum. In a way I partially owe my award to the openness and willingness of the Farmers’ Forum team who embraced the idea of putting these tools into practice.

I was extremely flattered listening to Henock reading out the following motivation for my award:

“The award pays tribute to the key role Roxanna played in leading the change in the way we communicate. It recognizes Roxy’s tireless dedication and energy to introduce IFAD staff to social media, promote the benefits and advantages of social media at the corporate level, and share her knowledge by conducting awareness-building and training sessions on web 2.0 tools and guiding IFAD staff on how to use social media effectively and professionally.”

“Roxy’s passion, enthusiasm and tireless dedication have anchored social media in IFAD’s communications work and she is commended for empowering her colleagues to become effective users of social media tools. “

I cannot but end this blogpost by referring back to Daniel Pink’s DRIVE paradigm. Pink’s paradigm is pushing us to embrace motivation 3.0 – where people are “motivated by the desire for autonomy over a task, for the mastery of a craft and for a sense of purpose”.

The IFAD awards programme paid tribute to these people. For sure, the 2011 edition will pay tribute to many more motivated and inspiring colleagues.

The six awardees will be receiving the official plaque at the forthcoming Governing Council. So please make sure you stay tuned, as we’ll be using social media and web2.0 tools to bring you live not only the award ceremony but the entire Governing Council event!

For now, Happy Holidays and on behalf of the IFAD social reporting team we wish you a prosperous 2011.

The third global meeting of Farmers' Forum thanks IFAD for establishing the Forum

On Tuesday afternoon, 70 farmers' leaders from around the world, representing millions of smallholders and rural producers from all over the world concluded their work at the third global meeting of the Farmers' Forum.

In their synthesis of deliberations they reiteriated the fact that since the last Farmers’ Forum, the world has experienced multiple crises, exacerbated by the global recession and climate change and as a result more people are poor and hungry.

They acknowledged the significance of family agriculture in the world and pledged to campaign for a UN Declaration for International Year of Family Farming.

The farmers indicated that they want agriculture to be controlled by them, the VERY people who cultivate the land and are feeding the world.

In sharing the summary of their deliberations with IFAD's 33rd Governing Council, they indicated there is no effective response to the challenges of food security for all, eradication of extreme poverty and mitigation of climate change without more and better investment in farms and rural communities and more supportive policies for rural development.

They commended IFAD for forging a strong partnership with Farmers’ Organizations and embedding them in Country Programmes. They told IFAD's membership that they highly appreciated the real progress in the consultation and partnership between IFAD, governments and farmer organizations.

They made the following recommendations to IFAD:

• Extend the partnership to all countries where IFAD is operating, taking into account the diversity of the organizations of poor rural people.
• Systematically include at least one national apex organization in the IFAD Country Programme Management Team in order to contribute to the steering of the IFAD country programme (COSOP formulation, project and programme design and implementation, policy dialogue and other initiatives).
• Create a flexible, demand-led facility within IFAD’s budget for facilitating the participation of farmers’ organizations in the COSOP and the project cycle.
• Develop operational guidelines to support the systematic engagement of farmers’ organizations at country level; in particular in the monitoring and implementation of IFAD programmes.
• Ensure that the already strong practice of consultation with farmers’ organizations is systematized; in this regard, IFAD and regional/international farmers’ organizations could maintain a roster of organizations that should be systematically invited when IFAD is about to embark on project design.
• Take stock of important lessons from programmes with farmers’ organizations, with a view to replication and upscaling, and to promote south-south exchanges and knowledge among the farmers. (In this regard, we recommend exploring the possibility replicating the programme ‘Learning Routes’, which was successfully implemented in Latin America.)

Last but not least, both farmer leaders and IFAD President stressed the importance of investing in young farmers. Farmer leaders recommended that IFAD:

• Map young farmer and rural youth organizations and their networks (national and regional).
• Hold a Farmers’ Forum event similar to the one held for women this year, and ensure more representation of young people in subsequent Farmers’ Forums.
• Designate within IFAD a focal point for youth.
• Hold a global workshop on youth involvement in Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development during this year (UN Year of Youth ).
• Mainstream youth in all IFAD policies and programmes, with a gender balance and an emphasis on developing capacity-building and enhancement programmes for rural youth to engage in sustainable food production and agriculture and rural employment.
• Launch pilot projects supporting rural youth.
• Organize youth exchanges for experience-sharing on best practices and learning.

Summary of women farmer leaders workshop

We delegates to the Global Farmers’ Forum 2010 – 61 participants from 27 countries and four continents – IFAD staff and observers, gathered during the Preparatory Workshop to the Farmers’ Forum on Promoting Women’s Leadership in Farmer’ Organizations held on February 12-13, declare the following:

We, women farmers, fishers and pastoralists, call attention once again to the glaring disproportion between women’s roles in all aspects of agriculture across the developing world and the limited recognition, rights, resources and services provided to us. We also raise an alarm over the effect that climate change and the financial crisis are having on us women as they result in increased poverty and food scarcity. Because of poverty and lack of services in rural areas, our sons and daughters do not wish to be farmers and continue to migrate to urban areas. This raises a critical question: How can the profitability and sustainability of farming be secured so as to ensure a future for the next generation of women and men farmers?

Effective and representative producer organizations can provide a powerful instrument to make rural women’s voices heard, so that we can have a greater influence over decisions that affect our lives and livelihoods. But as of yet, our voices have been heard too rarely in our organizations.

The economic empowerment of women and their increased knowledge and skills are essential preconditions to improve our status and livelihoods, and for us to be able to assume effective roles in producer organizations. We therefore urge IFAD and other donors to bring new and significant resources to support the economic empowerment of women farmers. We need these resources to strengthen our knowledge, skills and leadership in order to produce and process food more effectively and sustainably, for our families and also for the markets. We urge IFAD and other donors to direct resources to women’s structures in farmers’ organizations and to require quotas that are respected.

We also specifically call upon IFAD to:

• continue and increase efforts to enable women to increase their access to and control over productive assets including land and water

• support the development and provision of financial services suitable to agriculture, and to enable women’s incomes to grow;

• in addition to mainstreaming gender equality concerns throughout projects and programmes, wherever feasible earmark funds for women in IFAD-funded programmes as an affirmative action measure – for example under community development funds, and in training;

• use grant funding for women’s capacity building – including child care facilities where needed – when it is not possible to finance such activities through a loan;

• where IFAD-funded programmes support access to land and other kinds of property, seek to negotiate for joint titling, supported with legal advisory services to enable women to defend their rights;

• in the context of a much-needed focus on rural youth give attention to the specific situation and needs of young women.

In the context of IFAD’s engagement with farmers’ organizations we recommend that IFAD:

• open spaces for women farmer leaders to participate in country and global policy processes, and also in IFAD country strategy consultations;

• in the design of the projects and programmes that work with farmers’ organizations, establish quotas for women (where possible, not less than 30 per cent, with a view to reaching 50 per cent over time), provide incentives for producer organizations to achieve the targets, and monitor their implementation;

• invest more grant resources in increasing capacity of farmers’ organizations to address gender issues and empower women, and to strengthen women’s leadership – where possible channelling funds directly to women’s structures within organizations;

• involve women leaders of farmers’ organizations in the supervision and monitoring of development programmes.

Finally, we note with satisfaction that the 30 per cent quota of women participants recommended at the last meeting of the Farmers’ Forum has been exceeded this year. We urge that the current proportion of 40 per cent be maintained in subsequent meetings, with a view to further increasing over time.