Inside IFAD’s 2012 Governing Council: ‘Feeding the world, protecting the planet’

A small army of social reporters covered IFAD’s 2012 Governing Council of UN member states last week, attracting unprecedented online attention to the meeting at the agency’s Rome headquarters. This robust virtual presence supplemented regular media coverage of the high-profile gathering, which featured heads of state and other top officials and policy makers, as well as one of the world’s leading philanthropists.

The GC convenes annually to guide IFAD’s strategic investments in smallholder agricultural development and poverty reduction. Its theme this year – ‘Feeding the world, protecting the planet’ – emphasized the need to make rural livelihoods more viable and environmentally sustainable in an era of population growth and climate change.

Concurrent with the GC this year, IFAD’s biennial Farmers’ Forum also filled the agency’s conference rooms and corridors with representatives of small-scale producers’ organizations around the globe.

Throughout the meetings, the social reporters blogged, tweeted, and posted photos and videos on IFAD’s various social media platforms. In total, the GC and Farmers’ Forum produced some 5,900 tweets (under the hashtags #ifadgc and #fafo12), which appeared in Twitter feeds with millions of followers worldwide. The main speakers and panels, plus many side events, were also webcast live.

To review all of the GC and Farmers’ Forum posts, check the ‘blog archive’ links in the lower right column of this web page. Links to a small sampling of individual blog posts follow.

IFAD President looks ahead.  In the run-up to the GC, the President of IFAD, Kanayo F. Nwanze, shared his high expectations for the 2012 meeting in a brief video interview.

‘Youth in Agriculture.’ At a Farmers’ Forum pre-meeting held on 18 February, about 30 delegates from rural youth organizations developed action plans to help make agriculture a viable option for young entrepreneurs in developing nations.

‘The future is in our hands.’ The Farmers’ Forum kicked off on 20 February with a grassroots focus on the challenges faced by smallholder farmers and fishers around the world.

Smallholders and Rio+20. On the second day of the Farmers’ Forum, a working group on the upcoming Rio+20 conference reflected smallholders’ perspectives on climate change and agriculture, and their determination to be heard by world leaders.

Governing Council opens. As the GC began on 22 February, there was a palpable sense of anticipation about the presence of two heads of state, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, who delivered keynote speeches that day.

Meeting women farm leaders. After the opening speeches at the GC reaffirmed the central role of women and youth in smallholder agriculture, a Farmers’ Forum side event on women’s leadership got down to the nitty-gritty of development work and gender equality.

‘What will Rio herald for agriculture?’ At this compelling GC centre-stage event, Dr. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network, called for decision makers to put farmers first and allow them to produce food sustainably.

The role of remittances. The immense development potential of rural investments by communities in the diaspora catalysed an animated discussion at this GC side event, organized by IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances.

Gates at centre stage. On day two of the GC, following a keynote address by Italian Minister for International Cooperation Andrea Riccardi, philanthropist Bill Gates offered his views on a different future for smallholder agriculture. Another take on the Gates event is here , and a blog post about the expanding partnership between IFAD and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is here.

By the time the GC and Farmers’ Forum wrapped up, participants had been informed, inspired and challenged by these discussions and many more. And IFAD, through its social reporting network, had captured that excitement and shared it with interested and influential people worldwide.

Bill Gates centre-stage at IFAD: Imagining a different future for agriculture

For a billionaire and former entrepreneur, Bill Gates is pretty candid about the limits of capitalism.

His perspective comes across as entirely apolitical. It’s an objective fact, he suggests, that markets will always fall short on research and development benefiting the world’s poorest people, most of whom are subsistence farmers. Investors simply calculate that the returns on smallholder farming are too slow and the risks too high.

Instead of helping the poor, says the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, technological innovations in agriculture tend to enhance the lives and livelihoods of those who are already well off.

Earlier today, Gates shared this viewpoint – and many more – at IFAD headquarters in Rome. As a centre-stage guest at the agency’s Governing Council of UN member states, he made a brief speech and a took part in a Q&A exchange moderated by broadcast journalist Isha Sesay. Before an audience representing governments, development agencies and farmers’ organizations, he repeatedly stressed the urgency of bridging the investment gaps in sustainable small-scale agriculture.

“Investments in agriculture are the best weapons against hunger and poverty,” said Gates. To measure their impact, he advocated a new system of public “scorecards.” As Gates sees it, such scorecards would make governments and their partners accountable for meeting productivity targets in the smallholder farming sector – and for directing agricultural resources to those who need them most.

“A different future”
Even before Gates arrived at IFAD, the 2012 session of the Governing Council had seen its share of luminaries. Yesterday’s session featured the President of Rwanda, the Prime Minister of Italy and the Vice President of Liberia. This morning, the Italian Minister for International Cooperation delivered a keynote address. Ministers of Agriculture from several countries have also participated.

Gates brought a different kind of energy to the proceedings. At 56, the Microsoft founder and global philanthropist retains some of the tousled quality of the teenage computer genius he once was. At IFAD, he seemed more comfortable speaking off the cuff about technology than reading from a prepared text. No one is likely to mistake him for a career politician.

Appearances aside, Gates was forceful and occasionally challenging in his comments. He praised the heads of the Rome-based UN food and agriculture agencies as “an exciting new generation of leaders.” At the same time, he urged them to be more coordinated in revitalizing an “outdated and somewhat inefficient” world food system.

With increased international attention now focusing on agricultural issues, he said, “we have the opportunity and the obligation to imagine a different future.”

Adapting to climate change
Ideally, of course, that future will be a time when smallholder farmers are able to sustainably increase food production, lift their families out of poverty and preserve the land for generations yet to come. To get there, Gates said, they will need access to innovations such as drought- and flood-tolerant seeds, micro-irrigation systems, and vaccines for livestock.

He noted, too, that smallholders must share in “the digital revolution” in agriculture – from DNA sequencing of plant genomes to satellite imaging of crop yields, and even the use of video to broaden the scope of rural extension services.

“When you put the right tools in farmers’ hands, the results can be magical,” said Gates. In fact, small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa could nearly triple their crop yields in the next 20 years with the right interventions, according to Gates Foundation research.

During the Q&A session, Gates returned to this topic, adding that the basic strategies for the future of productive small-scale agriculture would be the same even if farmers didn’t have the added burden of adapting to climate variability. “Climate change increases the urgency,” he said. “But the right things to do for agriculture are constant.”

Linchpin of development

Just before taking centre-stage at the Governing Council, Gates had joined IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze to sign a statement of intent for an expanded partnership between the Gates Foundation and IFAD.

The two organizations are already co-financing more than $180 million in agricultural development projects. Today’s statement will accelerate their joint efforts to improve rural livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The statement reflects a growing realization that food security is a linchpin of sustainable development and poverty reduction. As Gates said at IFAD, “More productive small farmers are the key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals on hunger and poverty. If you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture.”

It’s a timely message for 500 million smallholder farmers who produce 80 per cent of the food in the developing world. The future they imagine – a future of health, nutrition, education and dignity for their families – will only come about through concerted action on the issues raised so provocatively by Bill Gates in Rome.

Watch the recorded webcast here:

Sustainable smallholder agriculture – and heads of state – in the spotlight at IFAD’s Governing Council

The lights in the large tent outside IFAD headquarters in Rome were blazing hot this morning. Beneath them, representatives of IFAD’s member states and staff, along with observers from grassroots farmers’ organizations and the media, gathered for the start of the agency’s 35th Governing Council.

The GC is the body that funds IFAD’s investments in smallholder agriculture around the world. Maybe it was just the lights, but something about the buzz in the room told me that the 2012 session would involve more than business as usual.

For one thing, there was a sense of anticipation about statements by two heads of state, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, who were about to address the GC. For another, the two-day session comes at a critical moment, as world leaders prepare for the upcoming Rio+20 climate conference, where issues of sustainable agriculture will be front and centre. Meanwhile, the international community, very much including Italy, continues to cope with challenges posed by the global financial crisis.

Beyond all that, the theme of the GC – “Feeding the world, protecting the planet” – conveyed an urgency that raised the temperature in the tent even higher.

Nwanze: “An enabling environment”
When the lights finally dimmed, IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze’s opening statement set the stage for a potentially transformational session.

Nwanze thanked member states for increasing support for IFAD despite their own fiscal constraints. He pointed out, as well, that the agency has expanded its reach. In 2010, 43 million people obtained services through IFAD-supported projects, Nwanze reported. By 2015, IFAD expects to reach 80 to 90 million rural men, women and children with opportunities to lift themselves out of extreme poverty and become food-secure.

“The time has come for smallholders to play their rightful role in contributing to economic growth and food security,” he said. “When these farmers are recognized as small entrepreneurs, when they have access to better resources and incentives, and when they have access to markets and an enabling environment, they can transform their communities, their own lives, and indeed the world.”

Nwanze underscored IFAD’s commitment to helping smallholders feed a growing global population even as they adapt to a changing climate. Initiatives such as its Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme, he said, “will make IFAD a leader in climate-smart funding for smallholders.”

Kagame: “Be bold”
When President Kagame took centre-stage, he noted a bitter irony: The world’s poorest and least food-secure households are themselves rural smallholders who can barely eke out a living through subsistence farming.

“It is therefore imperative,” said Kagame, “that affected countries, and the institutions that they partner with, be bold and try what has not been done before. We must learn from what has worked and adapt these models to suit smallholder farmers.”

In Rwanda’s agricultural sector, investments in sustainable smallholder farming have contributed to average annual growth of 8 per cent in the past few years. “This has directly resulted in over one million Rwandans moving above the poverty line,” said Kagame. “Our experience has also shown that yields can be even higher and more sustainable when environmental conservation is integrated with agricultural activity.”

Along with its development partners, including IFAD and the other Rome-based UN agencies, Rwanda is pursuing land intensification and resource conservation initiatives to further expand productivity. Because smallholder farmers produce most of the food, these efforts focus on helping them make the transition from subsistence to market-oriented production.

“Every farmer counts,” said Kagame. “None is too small to be ignored.”

Monti: “Equal access”
Prime Minister Monti briefly greeted staff members in the IFAD lobby before making his way (with a sizeable security detail) to the GC tent. When he took the podium, he said he was glad to come to IFAD “at a time in which food security is once again at the centre of the global agenda.”

Monti acknowledged that leaders of the industrialized world have recently invested much of their attention to addressing financial crises. “Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that we are confronted with a much wider and deeper crisis,” he said. “The rise in energy prices and the pressure on the global food system are a signal that we are putting unsustainable pressure on the world’s natural resources.”

Italy has promoted food security as a policy priority in various multilateral settings since commodity prices surged in 2007, Monti recalled. Even aside from humanitarian and development considerations, he argued, this is essential for political stability.

“A hungry world is an unjust world. It is also an unstable world,” he warned.

Monti also pointed to gender gaps that not only violate the rights of women smallholders but impede rural livelihoods overall. “Giving women equal access to agricultural resources and inputs is one of the most powerful ways of reducing poverty and hunger,” he said.

It was one of many compelling points made at the GC this morning, casting a bright light on critical issues that will be considered during the rest of this session – and beyond.

A new chapter: IFAD and the Gates Foundation step up collaboration on sustainable agriculture

By Kevin Cleaver
 
The following post by IFAD’s Associate Vice President for Programmes also appears on Impatient Optimists, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation blog.

For the past three decades, I’ve had the privilege of working with smallholder farmers around the world. They are among the poorest people on the planet, and yet I’m consistently struck by their constancy and dedication to the land.

Tomorrow in Rome, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will launch an expanded partnership to help these farmers increase their productivity and lift themselves out of poverty. At IFAD’s 2012 Governing Council, Bill Gates and IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze will sign a statement of intent to accelerate our collaboration on ensuring food security and improving rural livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

We drafted the text through an extraordinarily business-like process that took just two or three days from start to finish. In the world of high-profile partnerships, that’s all but unheard of. To me, it demonstrates that IFAD and the Foundation are embarking on our joint enterprise with the same level of commitment that smallholder farmers have always brought to feeding their families and communities.

This is critical because of the many competing priorities in the vast realm of international development. At times, the public, donors and the media may be tempted to turn their attention to the next big thing – the latest trend or more “attractive” cause. In the end, however, the soil provides our sustenance. Food security is a prerequisite for progress on every other development goal.

In any case, agriculture must be a top priority as the global population climbs toward a projected peak of 9 billion by 2050. To meet the world’s need for 60 per cent more available food, farmers will have to increase crop yields on a limited quantity of arable land. And they’ll have to do this sustainably, while adapting to the insidious effects of climate change.

The partnership between IFAD and the Foundation can give farmers a boost in their admittedly uphill struggle. In many ways, our organizations complement each other perfectly.

IFAD brings to the table 35 years of experience working with smallholder farmers, governments, NGOs and the private sector on multilateral investment projects worldwide. We know how small-scale agriculture works, and we have developed workable models for financing smallholders’ projects and marketing their products. The Foundation brings its own formidable resources, a world-class platform for advocacy and a proven capacity for innovation. It also offers technological prowess and effective systems for monitoring and evaluating the impact of our work.

Technology is key. The simplest advances – more robust seeds, or even better ploughs and hoes – can tilt the scales toward food security and poverty reduction. We simply have to find out what works and then replicate it feverishly.

This is not entirely new ground for IFAD and the Foundation. In fact, the Foundation has already contributed $155 million in co-financing for several IFAD-supported projects, including initiatives to develop drought-tolerant maize in sub-Saharan Africa and stress-tolerant rice in Africa and South Asia. By formally endorsing an expanded partnership tomorrow, Mr. Gates and Dr. Nwanze will build on what we’ve already accomplished together. But more important, they’ll open a new chapter in agricultural development for millions of men and women who toil in the fields every day.

Smallholder farmers deserve nothing less than our all-out support. As long as they remain impoverished, we are all that much poorer, because their dedication to the land is the world’s best hope of feeding itself for generations to come.

#fafo12: On day two, Farmers’ Forum delegates get down to business

The sun came out in Rome this morning – after yesterday’s heavy rains – on day two of the global Farmers’ Forum at IFAD headquarters. The meetings started on the early side, at 8:30 a.m., but as forum participants set to work, at least their shoes were dry.

If the opening day of the Farmers’ Forum was all about the big picture, today was about getting down to business. The agenda featured a series of discussions and reports by nine working groups composed of delegates from dozens of smallholder farmers’ and fishers’ networks, as well as IFAD staff.

Actually, the forum had two full sets of working groups. Five regional groups focused on operational partnerships between IFAD and organizations of small-scale producers in different parts of the world. Another four thematic groups drilled down on critical issues, including sustainable agriculture and fisheries, the viability of producers’ organizations, and the role of smallholders in the upcoming Rio+20 climate conference.

Both sets of working groups reported their findings and recommendations at the day’s two plenary sessions. By the time the sun set, the results had been synthesized into a draft outcome document for submission to the annual meeting of IFAD’s Governing Council. The GC, which convenes tomorrow, brings together representatives of the UN member states that fund IFAD. It will meet in a large tent that workers have erected in the IFAD parking lot, and many of the Farmers’ Forum delegates will stay on as observers.

Smallholders in the spotlight
Today, however, farmers and fishers themselves were at centre stage. At one of the plenaries, Farmers’ Forum Steering Committee member Alessandra Da Costa Lunes highlighted their urgent need for more equitable development policies. She was talking about Latin America and the Caribbean, but her comments resonated far beyond that region.

Family farmers on the whole have not benefited sufficiently from broader economic growth, said Da Costa. In fact, they often suffer as a result of policies that degrade natural resources in the name of promoting industry and agribusiness.

Despite the tremendous social capital of rural populations, she added, “economic development at all costs” is taking a heavy human and environmental toll.

For a relative newcomer – I’ve been on staff at IFAD for less than two months – such observations provide a fresh perspective on agriculture, poverty and the environment. From this literally ground-level point of view, you quickly realize that 500 million smallholder farmers already produce 80 per cent of the food consumed in the developing world. It’s plain to see that they must play a central role in ensuring food security for a growing global population as the human race adapts to climate change.

Strengthening producers’ organizations
The importance of smallholder producers’ organizations is the main point emphasized in the Farmers’ Forum draft recommendations to the GC. Most of the recommendations involve strengthening grassroots farmers’ and fishers’ ability to influence policies that directly affect rural lives and livelihoods.

Among other points, the draft urges IFAD to:

• Build the capacities of small-scale producers’ networks
• Involve these networks in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of country programmes and projects
• Advocate for programmes to train rural young people in sustainable agricultural technologies
• Work with governments to adopt and implement FAO’s recently issued voluntary guidelines on responsible governance of land tenure and fisheries
• Support the participation of smallholders’ organizations in Rio+20.

The Farmers’ Forum draft statement to the GC also endorses enhanced government investments in sustainable smallholder agriculture – with a special focus on access to land, credit and markets for poor rural women and young people. It calls, as well, for more youth representation in future meetings of the forum.

“All of these issues are legit,” said IFAD’s Associate Vice President for Programmes, Kevin Cleaver, speaking at one of today’s plenaries. “IFAD is committed to pushing this agenda.”

Farmers’ Forum opens: “The future is in our hands”

The fourth global meeting of the Farmers’ Forum kicked off today at IFAD headquarters in Rome with a grassroots focus on the challenges faced by smallholder farmers and fishers around the world. The two-day event is part of a continuing dialogue between rural producers’ organizations, IFAD and governments.

About 95 delegates from farmers’ and fishers’ networks, and an equal number of observers, are attending the Farmers’ Forum. Many have travelled thousands of miles to participate.

As a new member of IFAD’s staff, I’m experiencing the forum for the first time. Still, having previously spent more than a decade working with UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, I felt right at home at a Farmers’ Forum pre-meeting held here on Saturday. At that all-day special session, about 30 delegates from rural youth organizations put their heads together to develop an action plan on making agriculture a viable option for young people in developing nations.

It was a promising and forward-looking prelude to the rest of the forum, which is about making rural livelihoods generally more viable and environmentally sustainable – and reducing poverty in the bargain.

A matter of survival
Speakers at this morning’s packed opening session came from diverse backgrounds and regions. Yet their over-arching message to the leaders of governments and multilateral agencies was singular. To feed a growing global population while simultaneously adapting to climate change, they said, you have to consider – and act upon – the perspectives of small-scale food producers.

“It’s not a battle for fishers alone. It’s not just a battle for farmers,” said Ujjaini Halim of the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fishworkers. Instead, the task at hand is a matter of basic survival, she said, adding: “The future is in our hands.”

Halim is one of the members of the Farmers’ Forum Steering Committee, all of whom represent networks of small producers. In their statements, many of the committee members credited IFAD with advancing the idea that smallholder farmers are central to food security and poverty reduction. Several noted, however, that the devil is in the details of translating that idea into concrete policies and programmes.

The road ahead
Djibo Bagna of the West African producers’ network ROPPA listed a series of specific policy questions that must be answered as a prerequisite for rural transformation. For example, how will smallholders gain access to credit and markets? And how can we empower rural women and youth, and build the capacities of producers’ organizations?

“The road ahead is still very long,” said Bagna.

Other speakers asserted that small-scale producers should be more directly involved in the design and implementation of rural development plans at all levels. For instance, the UN Year of Family Farming – scheduled for 2014 – will be meaningful only if it involves smallholders in policy advocacy, said Estrella Penunia Banzuela of the Asian Farmers’ Association.

In addition, Steering Committee members urged IFAD and its partners to support pro-smallholder policy initiatives. For his part, Herman Kumara Wijethunge, of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, called for concerted action on FAO’s recently drafted Voluntary Guidelines on Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries.

Learning and collaboration
IFAD President Kanayo Nwanze also spoke at the opening session of the Farmers’ Forum, offering his own take on key issues of sustainable agriculture and environmental stewardship.

President Nwanze had visited the youth session on Saturday, where I saw him in a public setting for the first time. I was struck by his warm connection with the participants. He referred to that session today, reaffirming his commitment to “strengthening IFAD’s support of young women and men so that they can choose and build their futures in rural areas.”

Citing the droughts in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, and other recent weather shocks, President Nwanze added that “farmers are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather and shifts in climate patterns.” In the run-up to the Rio+20 climate conference in June, he said, IFAD and its grassroots partners – including young people – “must strengthen our collaborations.”

Speaking of collaboration, President Nwanze explained that 90 per cent of IFAD’s projects have benefitted from the input of producers’ organizations since the last meeting of the Farmers’ Forum two years ago. “But we are well aware that there is still more to do in terms of inclusiveness and consistency in these partnerships,” he said.

The Farmers’ Forum is nothing if not inclusive. It seems an ideal opportunity to strengthen partnerships. For me, it’s also a unique chance to learn about the hands-on issues that make up IFAD’s everyday operations. I look forward to learning more.