Launch Of The Rural Economy Grant Scheme

he Rural Economy Grant Scheme (REG), worth up to £60 million in total, was launched at the end of February. REG has been introduced under the Rural Development Program for England (RDPE) and adds to the Farming and Forestry Improvement Scheme (FFIS) launched in November 2011. REG provides support for eligible projects requesting between £25,000 and circa £1 million of grant.

The scheme provides

Getting Connected - Rural Areas Are Still Losing Out

The boundaries between work and home are becoming increasingly blurred. The growth of home working has been one of the most marked features of workforce change in recent years, and with more people wanting to be contactable 24 hours a day it is essential that a home has the best communication technology possible.

David Hill of the Savills Country House Consultancy department, who advises on the

Horn of Africa: The Rains will fail in 2015, 2016, or 2017, but must we also fail?

By Kevin Cleaver, IFAD Associate Vice President

The current drought in the Horn of Africa, the worst in the past 60 years, has governments in the region and the international donor community scrambling to raise additional funds for emergency relief and provide desperately required food, medical care and shelter to the affected populations in Somalia, southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya to address their dire immediate needs.

Drought in this part of the continent is not unknown and has been an increasingly frequent occurrence. Datelines change (2005, 2006, 2008 and now, 2011) but the stories of unimaginable hardship, death and depravation, while differing in magnitude from one drought to the next, remain much the same. Drought never only has localized consequences. Its effects cascade through countries in the form of higher food and fodder prices, civil unrest and diminished social services as governments redeploy budgets to meet the most pressing needs of their citizens. These effects multiply the impact of the drought, dragging millions of families who had improved their living conditions back into poverty and deepening the hole of those fighting to climb out of poverty.

Although governments and their development partners cannot make the rains come, they can mitigate the impact of these recurring droughts in East Africa by helping farmers and herders build resilience to these inevitable meteorological occurrences. This is a cornerstone of the work the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in the region. Much greater investment in agricultural research, an area long neglected by both governments and donors, is essential to develop and diffuse drought and disease-resistant food and fodder crops which are better able to withstand moisture stress. There needs to be greater government and donor support for integrated soil fertility management, erosion control, agro-forestry, and reforestation, which are fundamental to preserving the natural resources — the principal capital asset of smallholder farmers and herders. Minimizing post-harvest food and fodder losses through better on-farm storage facilities, improving farmer and herder access to credit to purchase agricultural and veterinary inputs, supporting transparent and accessible markets, and strengthening farmer and herders’ organizations are all critical to building the resilience to mitigate the effects of drought.

News coverage of the unfolding events in East Africa brings stark images of desperation, disease and death into the living rooms, boardrooms and government offices in developed countries, eliciting sympathy, and hopefully the necessary financial support to address this growing emergency. But building resilience of farming and herding communities in East Africa requires a long term, sustained commitment on the part of the region’s governments and the international donor community. When the next drought comes in 2015, 2016, or 2017, will there be fewer refugees, walking fewer miles to get the help they desperately need? Will there be more water points, and greater availability of livestock feed and supplements? Will the granaries be full enough to tide over many who are now hungry? The answers to these questions depend largely on the continued commitment of the international community. The rains will fail. But let us not fail, too.

The tale of two lakes: Lake Ahémé and Nokoué

Last week as I was leaving Cotonou for Rome, I promised myself to spend the weekend and finalize the last blogpost of the Benin series. Despite all my good intentions, I did not quite manage to do so. And back in the office, I literally got swamped and swallowed by a web of meetings, emails, phone calls and process work.

Despite the delay, I sincerely hope that the text that follows recreates my rich experience.

Benin’s fisheries landscape
Benin has a coastline of 121 kilometres stretching from Togo To Nigeria and an exclusive economic zone¹ of approximately 27,750 km².

Fishers community living on the riversides, coastal lagoons and lakes primarily practice inland fishing using pirogues. Pirogues are small boats designed in such a way that they can be used in shallow waters and can easily be turned over to drain water that may get on board. Typically, artisanal fishers use paddles, sails and in some cases outboard engines on their pirogues.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Benin’s maritime artisanal fishing fleet is composed of 825 pirogues, more than half operating without an engine and 52,540 pirogue are used for mainland fishing.

The country’s fishing sector is faced with challenges such as a decreasing fish stock due to over exploitation and soil erosion which has led to degradation of water bodies.

To overcome these challenges and others, the IFAD-funded Participatory Artisanal Fisheries Development Support Programme, better known as PADPPA through its activities:

• put in place numerous spawning beds and acadja or “fish ambush trap” enclosures
• undertook reforestation efforts to restore vegetation and reduce soil erosion
• provided pirogues to crab collectors
• equipped women fish wholesalers with iceboxes and improved Chorkhor ovens for smoking fish

A typical day for an artisanal fishers such as Ambroise Zounon begins at 5 in the morning when he set out for the lagoon in his pirogue.

Zounon has a fleet of seven pirogues and uses the acadjas for fishing. Thanks to the training received from PADPPA, he has managed to diversify his activities. He not only earns from his fisheries activities, but is also practicing pig farming and rents out his pirogues to other fishers.

“The fish stock in our lake was almost completely depleted”, says Zounon. “Thanks to PADPPA’s efforts, we now have the spawning beds in this lagoon”.

“Acadjas is a traditional fishing technique which provides a substrata of plants and animals and help to enhance fish production”, explains Zounon. “The spawning beds, on the other hand, are underwater solid surface used to increase the fish stock.”

These different methods have allowed Zounon and the other fishers in village of Houinta in Porto-Novo to have a relatively flourishing fishing business which in turn provides income generating opportunities for the women of their community.

Power women
The clear division of labour in Benin’s fishing practices is quite impressive. For example, fishing crabs and selling fish are exclusively a woman’s job. This is why whenever you visit a fish market in Benin, you can be sure to be greeted by a cheerful and colourful army of “mareyeuses” - women fish wholesalers. I challenge you to find a male fish wholesaler in the entire country!

The mareyeuses activities is not only limited on land. Even if you venture on a lake or lagoon where men are fishing in the spawn beds or acadjas enclosures, you’ll find the “mareyeuses” on their boats, buying fish from the men and selling it there and then.

Eugenie Bocovou is the president of a mareyeuses association which has over 8,000 members. She, like other members of the association, buys her fish directly from the fishers on the lake.

“I leave the house early in the morning for the lagoon, where about twenty men fish in the spawning beds and the acadja implemented by PADPPA”, explains Bocovou.

“I buy fish from them and sell it directly on the lake and what ever is left, I’ll bring it back to shore and sell it at the local market”.

The mareyeuses not always have storage facilities, such as iceboxes on board of their pirogues. Lack of adequate storage facility, combined with the lack of processing culture, are amongst the many challenges of women fish wholesalers.

One of the many new frontiers for Benin’s fishing sector and especially for the mareyeuses is the processing industry. You hardly find anyone employed in cutting, scaling and storage business. In fact, this is an underdeveloped sector.

To overcome these challenges, PADPPA has been providing iceboxes to the mareyeuses and has equipped certain communities with fish smoking facilities.

Smoking and frying fish are practically the only processing techniques practiced by the mareyeuses. And unfortunately, modern smoking techniques are not quite widespread in Benin.

Women still use firewood and rudimentary ovens. This means there is a high incidence of respiratory and eye diseases among women. Furthermore, smoking fish is practiced in less than hygienic conditions.

Recognizing the benefits of smoked fish such as longer shelf life and enhanced flavour, PADPPA provided mareyeuses such as Afi Lea Amoussou one of the 12 environmental friendly and clean smoking unit - known as chorkhor ovens.

“Thanks to these new ovens, I have better quality of smoked fish because the smoke circulates better and this way the entire fish is smoked. This improved quality means I have better business, I have reduced significantly health hazards associated with smoke inhalation, burns and my eyes do not tear as they used to before”, says Amoussou with a smile.

“I manage to sell my smoked fish anywhere from CFA12,000 to CFA25,000”.

“We love these ovens, because they do not cost too much to build, I can smoke much more fish, they are easy to use, the firebox is very accessible and I have significantly reduced the consumption of fire wood, which means we have to cut less trees and I do not have to spend a lot of time collecting firewood so I can do other things”, explains Amoussou with an ear to ear smile.

Amoussou, Bocovou and other mareyeuses are now running successful businesses and as a result have gained a social status within their communities.

It is common knowledge that there are no limits to women’s inventiveness and creativity and the mareyeuses are no exception. Their next frontier is to expand their processing business and to enter the export business, something that Albertine Fanounonsi is successfully practicing.

No crab mentality in Benin!
Crab fishing is another source of income for women fishers in Benin. Pierrette Medeho is one of the women crab collectors who lives in the village of Dohi in Comé district on Lake Ahémé.

PADPPA provided capacity building to this crab collecting community and equipped the women crab fishers with seven pirogues.

“Before we had our own boats, we used to take our husband’s boat when they were not using them and if we had a bit of money, we used to rent them”, says Medeho.

“Now that we have our own boat, during crab fishing season we are able to go out every day.”

“Collecting crab is a tough job. I go out with five other women”, explains Medeho. “We leave the house at 5 in the morning and if the weather is good, we stay out until 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon”.

On a good day, the women manage to come back with four to five baskets of crab each. And when they come back to shore, they have Albertine Fanounonsi waiting for them who buys their entire catch.

Medeho and her four campions use the money from their crab sale to send their children to school, contribute to the household expenses and they put aside the money they used to pay for rent for a rainy day.

Fanounonsi who is one of their main customers runs a thriving “crab export” business to Togo. She has devised a sophisticated delivery system in some ways similar to dabbawalla - the Mumbai lunchbox boys.

She buys a small basket for 1,000CFA and transfers the contents of eight small baskets in a big one. Fanounonsi’s crab baskets carry her brand which is her business trademark.

The crabs travel for two hours on road and then a boat takes them Togo. Someone on the other side picks up her baskets and sells them for her. Amazingly enough, thanks to the branded baskets which act like a bar code on a DHL package or a luggage tag, just like the dabbawalla lunchboxes in Mumbai, Fanounonsi crabs never go astray!

Fanounonsi visits Togo once a week to cash the money from the crab sale. On average she manages to sell one of her branded baskets between 9000-12,000CFA.

These women crab fishers collect crab, but as you can see they not have a “crab mentality”. For those who may not know what a crab mentality is - it is a metaphor describing how when crabs are put in a basket, they grab at each other and by pulling each other down, they prevent any of them from escaping.

There is a lot to learn from the women crab fishers of Dohi village. Their total lack of a crab mentality has allowed the community as a whole to thrive and prosper, with Fanounonsi running a thriving export business and Medeho and her companions running an equally flourshing crab collecting business.

The next logical step for industrious and intelligent women like Fanounonsi is to seriously consider adding value to her business by embracing processing and packing techniques and setting up a global crab export business!

Meet the people of Ganvie: Living on water
One of the last sites that my mentor Daouda Aliou wanted me to visit on this extraordinary trip, was lake village of Ganvie.

Ganvie is located in Lake Nokoué not too far away from Cotonou. It has a population of around 40,000 people, with 3,000 stilted houses spread out in 11 villages.

Ganvie village dates back to 17th century when the Tofinu people to escape slavery and the wrath of the Fon warriors - whose religion did not allow them to enter water - settled in this lake village.

It lies several kilometers from the shore. To avoid continuous trips to the shore, the inhabitants have organized themselves in such a way that they are completely self-sufficient. The floating markets, similar to those of Thailand, Viet Nam and Indonesia, sell fish, vegetables and fruits and acts like a social hub.

The villagers of Ganvie may have no running water or electricity, but almost all of them have a cellphone. While it is true that the main income generating activity on the lake is fishing, however, as you move around in pirogues on the lake, you’ll come across villagers selling cellphone airtime from their floating houses or running a thriving business of recharging cellphones for 100CFA. I wonder how long it took the “recharge votre portable” gentleman to pay for his generator - which incidentally is the only one on the entire lake!

Thanks to PADPPA, the artisanal fishers in Ganvie are using acadjas technique which is helping the polluted lake to restore some of its biodiversity and increase the available fish stock.

PADPPA has also introduced alternative income generating activities such as rabbit farming on this extraordinary lake village.

“What we really liked about the PADPPA approach was the fact that they listened to and understood our needs”, says BlandineKossou, the President of the rabbit farming association.

“We had our share of challenges with the villagers, as they thought that PADPPA was here to give them money and handouts”.

“The villagers who understood the scope of the programme and embraced the various activities such as fishing and rabbit farming today have a secure income”, explains Kossou.

“For example, we are able to sell our fish at the market for an average of 10,000CFA per basket and our rabbits between 4,000-5,000 CFA.”

The rabbit farming association has taken all of this one step further and ever month is putting aside 10,000CFA which is used to buy feed, repair or buy new rabbit cages.

“We could further expand our business and increase our income if we could get a loan, but you know having access to credit is not easy”, concludes Kossou.

“It is within this context that IFAD’s next interventions in Benin amongst other things will also focus on rural finance. This will hopefully allow people like Amoussou, Mensah and Kossou to finally have access to credit and be able to expand their businesses and turn their dreams into reality”, says Ndaya Beltchika, IFAD’s country programme manager for Benin.

On a personal note
I want to close this blogpost with thanking all the extraordinary people who I had the privilege of meeting on this mission. And they are:

Paul Allognon, Rose Mensah, Kuassi Oke, Vincent Deyo, Afi Lea Amoussou, Raphael Tokpowanou, Eugenie Bocovou, Ambroise Zounon, Augustin Amoussougbo, Pierrette Medeho, Albertine Fanounonsi, Blandine Kossou, Julienne Ebleou, Brigitte Bonou, Hounkanrin Vincent, Afomasse T, Mesmin, Richicatau Sale, Aglinglo A. Crespin, Gérard Gnakadja and, Daouda Aliou.

Thank you for your time, for you generosity and for your honesty. Thank you for sharing your stories, achievements, successes, challenges, aspirations and hopes. And I hope I’ve managed to share a sliver of your rich and inspiring stories.

Bonne chance for all your future endeavours and I hope our paths will cross in the near future.

Read more from the PADPPA series:

• Learn, adjust and aim high
• Once a fisher always a fisher? Maybe not....

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1/ Exclusive economic zone is an area of coastal water and seabed within a certain distance of a country's coastline, to which the country claims exclusive rights for fishing, drilling, and other economic activities.

Capitalizing on IDRC’s experiences in Climate Change Adaptation in Africa

By Guy Jobbins

On Thursday 26 May I was delighted to have the opportunity to visit IFAD for a knowledge sharing session jointly organized by NEN and ECD and present some findings from the Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA) program’s work in North Africa. Some fifteen people from different departments joined in the discussion.

The CCAA program is a joint initiative of Canada’s International Development Research Centre and the UK’s Department for International Development. The program’s goal is to strengthen the capacity of African countries to adapt to climate change in ways which benefit the most vulnerable members of society. To that end, since 2006 we have supported 46 participatory action research and capacity development projects in 33 African countries. Much of CCAA’s adaptation research has focused on agriculture and rural livelihoods, but there is also significant work on human health, urban adaptation, water and coastal zones. Our capacity building program has included support for the African Climate Change Fellowship Program, which currently has a call for applications open, and the knowledge sharing platform AfricaAdapt, which is a bilingual network focused on Africa.

The presentation started with a brief overview of seven CCAA projects in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. Although they deal with a range of themes, fresh water is an entry point they all share in common. You can find links to the abstracts of all these projects at the CCAA website, and there are also profiles of three projects in Morocco which have worked on agriculture and rural livelihoods, the equitable sharing of increasingly scarce water resources, and adaptation in Morocco’s north-eastern coastal areas.

These projects have helped develop adaptations to specific climate impacts, such as erosion control measures, an early warning system for cutaneous leishmaniasis outbreaks, and designs for coastal defences. However, they have also worked on two other aspects of adaptation - increasing resilience to climate impacts, and strengthening adaptive capacity.

The communities these projects work with already face significant development challenges. A key aspect of their vulnerability to climate change is that they already experience poverty, have difficulties accessing markets and public services, cope with challenging environmental conditions such as water scarcity, and so on. An important part of dealing with climate change will be reducing the challenges that make people vulnerable, leaving them better prepared to cope with climate shocks and stresses. For example, the research team in Lake Nasser has helped increase income from agriculture and improve access to public health services, outcomes which have immediate benefits as well as increasing resilience to climate impacts.

In terms of adaptive capacity, the CCAA program has seen benefits of the participatory action research (PAR) approaches adopted by projects. As adaptation is a long term, iterative process, developing specific adaptations is in some ways less significant than strengthening the ability of different actors and organisations to identify, develop, select and implement their own adaptations into the future, and to develop learning, innovative institutions. CCAA projects in North Africa have enabled community institutions for farmer experimentation, upgraded the capacities of water users’ associations, and strengthened participatory processes for coastal planning, amongst other examples.

After the presentation we discussed the merits of different adaptation options in agriculture, options for scaling out and up lessons through NAPA processes, and the importance of developing economic analyses of investments in adaptation. We also discussed questions of improving the accessibility of climate information to farmers, with examples from CCAA projects across Africa. Another question led to a conversation about the tensions between the impacts of global processes such as climate change and market fluctuations and local capacities to anticipate and respond to them. This prompted further discussion about the need for decision makers to act despite the uncertainties of climate change, and the importance building learning institutions for innovation.

Guy jobbins ccaa presentation 26 may 2011

View more presentations from IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development.

I greatly enjoyed the conversation and learning more about the work of IFAD in supporting climate change adaptation. One of the specific ideas that I took away with me was the potential for small scale renewable energy technologies in North Africa to support adaptation and resilience, whether by reducing costs of pumping water or through solar refrigeration of products.

Guy Jobbins
Senior Program Officer
Climate Change Adaptation in Africa Program
Middle East and North Africa Regional Office
International Development Research Centre
gjobbins@idrc.org.eg

Today, IFAD President released The Rural Poverty Report 2011 at Chatham House in London, #rpr2011

Here is our big day. We are launching the Rural Poverty Report 2011. The report is the result of two years of extensive work.

To make sure that nothing would go wrong, I went down early to the plenary hall of Chatham House to get myself organized to find out to the my biggest chagrin that there was no internet access in the plenary hall. PANIC, total PANIC. I pulled out my Blackberry, more PANIC, no signal!!

Deep breath, think and think fast. Rushed upstairs to do as much as I could do  before the meeting started. After putting in place the contingency plan and coming to terms with my constraint, I headed back downstairs.

At 9:33, David Nabarro welcomed the participants and opened the “Food Security 2010 – Making Food Security work: Matching supply to demand.

In introducing Dr Nwanze, IFAD President, to take the floor to deliver the keynote address, he mentioned that “IFAD is now a leader and advocate for food security". Nabarro compliment IFAD taking "actions to ensure that food security will be experienced by everyone and not just a few”.

With that introduction, the President, holding the report in his hand  and later in the session, Edward Heinemann, the Rural Poverty Report, team leader,  proceeded to unveil the findings of the Rural Poverty Report 2011.

"The report is a comprehensive review of rural poverty, which accounts for 70 per cent of the world’s extremely poor people – about 1 billion children, women and men", said Dr Nwanze.

"The report provides an in-depth evaluation of the state of rural poverty and its consequences for people all over the world. It also makes important recommendations on policies and investments that will help rural women and men move out of poverty and, in the process, become part of the solution for the global food security challenges of the next
several decades".

"One of unique characteristics of the Rural Poverty Report 2011 is that it goes beyond cold facts and figures and includes the stories, hopes, challenges and aspirations of poor rural women and men from around the world who are struggling to overcome poverty. Their thoughts and perspectives were influential in the preparation of the report", said Nwanze.


During the meeting both Dr Nwanze and Heinemann reminded the audience that as we embark in the new decade of the 21st century, global poverty still remains a massive and predominantly rural phenomenon - and this is absolutely unacceptable.

The Rural Poverty Report outlines four steps to eliminate hunger and poverty

• Help rural people better manage the risks they face
• Sustainably increase agricultural production
• Facilitate equitable access to new and changing marketplaces by viewing smallholder farmers first and foremost as businesses
• Encourage the growth of non-farm rural jobs

Managing risk
"Smallholder farmers have always been vulnerable to risk, and now these risks are growing. Today, they face less secure access to land, increasing pressure on common property resources, climate change and food price volatility. We need to find ways of reducing risk and giving poor rural people access to the tools they need to deal with it", explained Nwanze.

The Report argues that for some, this will mean improving their skills, while for others, it will mean access to micro insurance, and for others still it will mean social protection. What is crucial is to create the right environment to make it easier for more rural people to be more entrepreneurial, creating the conditions for a vibrant rural sector which generates locally produced goods and spurs sustainable non-farm employment in services, in agro-processing and in small-scale manufacturing.

Sustainably increase agricultural production
The report makes the case that we need to ensure that the world’s 500 million smallholder farms are able to realise their potential as small-scale businesses and at the same time increase food production but in a sustainable way.

In Africa, for example, only 6 per cent of the land is irrigated. Only one tenth of the average amount of fertilizer is used on farm land. But we also know that 60 per cent of the world’s uncultivated arable land is in Africa. Imagine the potential that this land holds for the approximately 300 million poor people who live in rural Africa. Imagine the potential of the 2 billion people who live or work on small farms the world over.

This means we need to get higher yields from existing land, and we need to do so in an environmentally sustainable way that does not pollute, diminish the land over time or contribute to greenhouse gas emissions - in other words, we must have sustainable intensification.

The report highlights that sustainable farming practices have improved yields by an average of nearly 80 per cent over four years. It argues that what we need is a systemic approach that uses a variety of innovations – derived from the latest scientific discoveries and from local practices and knowledge – to bring agriculture into the forefront of efforts to protect and preserve land, air and water for generations to come.

The report concludes that this means complementing conventional approaches to increasing productivity with a much stronger focus on soil and water management, integrated approaches to soil fertility management and overall farm production systems.

At the same time, the report recognizes that there is no blueprint for sustainable agricultural  intensification. The best practices will be determined by the local context. The challenge is to develop policies and institutions that can make it happen on a massive scale.

Facilitate equitable access to new and changing marketplaces by viewing smallholder farmers first and foremost as businesses
"One of the other challenges highlighted in the report is the lack of access to markets which is one of the determinants of poverty", explains Heinemann".

Smallholder farmers and poor rural people must have opportunities to be entrepreneurs, rather than bystanders. To realize their business potential there should be a concerted effort to reduce risk and transaction costs along value chains, supporting rural producers’ organizations, expanding financial services into rural areas and ensuring that small farmers have access to the infrastructure, the utilities and information. Investing in good governance is another key ingredient".

Encourage the growth of non-farm rural jobs
"There is no question that agriculture is and will continue to be the key economic driver in rural areas. Agricultural success is a route out of poverty for millions", said Nwanze.

"Today, around 80 per cent of rural people are involved in farming to some degree. We must continue to support those who see agricultural production as their main livelihood in every way we can. But we must also recognize that rural economies are becoming more diverse. If we succeed in creating more profitable farms, we will also succeed in creating associated non-farm enterprises. Some people will leave the farm for new jobs with large enterprises in rural areas, while others will choose to become entrepreneurs in non-farming pursuits".

The Rural Poverty Report suggests that in order to meet the growing needs of a hungry world, agriculture must be a viable and rewarding activity for the large number of people who choose it. But increasingly, it will be one of many choices, not the only choice. This is not a threat to agriculture, but rather a chance to develop a more modern, diversified economy.

Call for action
"Our report is not one that should sit on a shelf to collect dust. I hope that we all join hands to implement the four steps outlined above to eliminate poverty and hunger", exclaimed Nwanze.

"The challenge now is for governments to follow through on their promises and for players in all areas of rural development to take action. Developing countries must be the drivers of rural development. Where countries have shown the commitment, development agencies and others should support their efforts".

IFAD is meeting the challenge by working closely with partners to scale up our support to rural development on the ground. We are also championing a new and more dynamic vision of rural development.

Dr Nwanze concluded: "And as we look at today’s rural poverty report, we must also look to the future, and that means focusing on the young people who live and work in rural areas. Give them the skills and confidence they need to run profitable farms or start businesses, and they hold the potential to become the community leaders of tomorrow. Ignore them, and they will have little option but to leave their homes and families to search for work in the cities".

Sir Gordon Conway who took the floor after the President's keynote address complimented and congratulated IFAD for a great multidisciplinary report which is totally grounded in reality and comprehensively reflects the stories, challenges and aspirations of poor rural people!

Others commended IFAD for putting out a strong practical report showing how to unlock the potential smallholder agriculture, for seeing farmers as business people and for depicting "their business" being embedded in social, economic and political relationships and showing how when these relationships do not work that is when food security fails.

Sitting in the room and hearing rural development leaders citing and referring to the report just minutes after it was launched was indeed a gratifying moment. Undoubtedly we'll be hearing more and more people citing and quoting the report. Well done to all those who were involved in this two year effort. Well done to Ed and Bettina.

The panelists echoing the President's  message of hope and call for action urged the participants to read the Rural Poverty Report. Make sure you download the report.

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Also, please mark your calendars: on 9 and10 December from 9:00-10:00 and from 14:00-15:00 December, Edward Heinemann and his team will answer your questions and comments on Facebook and Twitter.

Please send us your questions and comments by 16:00GMT 8 December.

Follow @ifadnews on Twitter and become join us on our Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/ifad/107399332627995).

See you on-line.

Listen to Edward Heinemann who shares some of the findings of the Rural Poverty Report 2011

Rural Poverty Report 2011: Mixed progress but also new hope in reducing rural poverty #rpr2011

by Kanayo F. Nwanze

On 6 December 2010, at 11:00GMT at the opening of a major international conference on food security convened by Chatham House IFAD will launch the Rural Poverty Report 2011.

Just think, what would your life be like if you were one of the 1.4 billion women, men and children who live in extreme poverty? Chances are you would live in a rural area, as 70 per cent of the world’s extremely poor people do.

Like Pascaline Bampoky from Senegal, you wouldn’t have had much of an opportunity to study, you would be farming rice, raising pigs, selling ice cream and cleaning houses – all in a day’s work to feed your family.

Like Shazia Bibi from Pakistan, you might wonder if your garlic will compete at the market with lower priced imports and whether your profits will cover the costs of your children’s education and treatment for your heart condition.

And if you are a young man like Williams Novoa Lizardo in Peru, you might lose hope of making a living where you were born and consider migrating to a city to find work.

The good news, according to the Rural Poverty Report 2011 issued by IFAD, is that over the last ten years more than 350 million rural people have pulled themselves out of extreme poverty. During this time, the percentage of the world’s rural inhabitants living on less than US$1.25 a day has dropped from nearly half to about one-third.

Accounting for much of the progress has been East Asia, and particularly China, where the number of extremely poor people in rural areas fell by two-thirds – from 365 million to 117 million – as did the rate of extreme poverty, which went from 44 to 15 per cent.

There was also good progress in both Latin America and the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, where extreme poverty rates in rural areas fell by about half over the past decade.

But, this progress notwithstanding, the problem remains a pervasive one, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the rate of rural poverty has fallen slightly in the last decade but is still above 60 per cent, and in South Asia, which is home to half of the world’s one billion extremely poor rural people.



Just as these statistics tell a story of uneven progress in reducing rural poverty, changes that are underway in rural areas are giving rise to both challenges and new hope for rural people in their struggle for a better life.

The challenges include increasingly volatile food prices, which complicate life for rural people both as producers and buyers of food. And there are other emerging threats such as the deterioration of the natural resource base, growing competition for land and water, and the potential harm that climate change can cause to the rural landscape.

But good things are happening, as well. As cities expand and the world becomes more urbanized, there is a growing demand for high value food, and accordingly agricultural markets are expanding and becoming better organized. Supermarkets, for example, have grown rapidly across much of the developing world, and in some parts of Latin America they typically account for 60 per cent or more of retail food sales. To be sure, modern markets and value chains bring with them their own challenges for some smallholder farmers in terms of higher entry costs, but the potential opportunities they also bring cannot be overlooked.

And while agriculture continues to be a key driver of rural growth – four-fifths of rural households worldwide are engaged in farming at some level – technological advancements and changes in the global economy are also creating non-farm jobs and development in rural areas. The potential for growth is further enhanced by the search for renewable energy sources that is ramping up around the world.

All of this means opportunity for greater numbers of poor rural women and men to lift themselves out of poverty and create a better life and a future for themselves and their children. But making the most of it requires an overall policy and investment approach that is, at the same time, both market-oriented and environmentally sustainable.

For starters, national governments and the international community need to reverse the longstanding neglect of rural development. We need to improve governance in rural areas and create a better economic environment for smallholder farmers to succeed and grow not only food but their businesses as well.

We need to invest in rural infrastructure and in the education and skills of rural people so that they themselves can make the most of new opportunities to engage in agricultural markets or work in non-farm industries. We need to strengthen their collective capabilities so that they can support each other in managing the risks they face, learn new techniques for improving their productivity, and market their products.

Above all, we need to stop treating the rural poor as charity cases and truly recognize that they are people whose innovation, dynamism and hard work will ultimately lead the way out of poverty’s darkness and into the bright sunshine of growth, development and prosperity.

Nothing less than global food security hangs in the balance. The experts say that agricultural production will have to increase 70 per cent by 2050 – and output in developing countries will have to double – in order to feed the world’s growing global population, expected to reach nine billion by then.

I have no doubt that Pascaline, Shazia and Williams are up to the challenge. Are the rest of us?

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On 6 December at 11:00GMT you may download the English version of the Rural Poverty Report 2011 at http://www.ifad.org/rpr2011/report

Meet the women and men from rural areas whose thoughts and perspectives were influential in the preparation of theRural Poverty Report 2011 Read testimonies and watch the video testimonials

Dedicado a la mejor bordadora del valle del colca, Simona Cutipa, en el día internacional de la mujer

Conocí a Simona Cutipa durante la Ruta de Aprendizaje del FIDA organizada por PROCASUR en Perú del 17 al 23 de enero de 2010. Su vida, su historia y su trabajo me conmovieron y creo que merecen ser compartidos con otros hombres y mujeres y más en estos días que se brinda tributo a las mujeres en ocasión del Día Internacional de la Mujer. Vi como bordaba delante de una máquina de coser y me fascinó. Sus dedos se deslizaban sobre la tela con una precisión increíble, bordaba de memoria: pájaros, flores, plantas y otros adornos típicos de su cultura, del Valle del Colca, sin ningún dibujo que la ayudara. Los pianistas son apreciados por la maestría con que tocan el piano y entonces pensé por qué no brindar tributo a la maestría y el arte de Simona, la mejor artesana bordadora del valle del Colca. Simona nació en Coporaque, vive en Chivay con su esposo y tiene cinco hijos. Simona empezó a demostrar su talento desde pequeña pues le encantaba dibujar. Comenzó a bordar con 13 años. Sus padres hacían bordados antiguos achocha (bordados de flores). Simona se siente sumamente orgullosa de sus raíces, de su tierra y de su cultura y la mejor herencia que le dejaron sus padres, según ella, fue su cultura: “la cultura de mis padres estaba en un cofre”.

El proyecto Sierra Sur tiene por finalidad potenciar los recursos humanos, naturales, materiales, financieros y sociales de los hombres y mujeres que se dedican a pequeñas actividades agrícolas y no agrícolas en la sierra sur como forma de mejorar sus medios de subsistencia y promover la creación de oportunidades de generar ingresos. Uno de los mecanismos utilizados para el fortalecimiento de los mercados es la contratación de servicios de asistencia técnica por parte de los beneficiarios del proyecto. Fue así como Simona empezó a colaborar con el FIDA en el proyecto Sierra Sur como capacitadora o proveedora de servicios privados de asistencia técnica.

Por un momento y ante la creatividad y el arte de Simona no pude resistir la tentación de entrevistarla durante unos minutos, a pesar de no ser una periodista.

A mi pregunta de qué había significado para ella y su familia haber participado y ganado un concurso de asistencia técnica del CLAR (Comité Local de Asignación de Recursos), Simona me contestó: “Yo me he presentado así cuando hicieron llamar por la radio. Dije: ‘voy a ver, voy a ver’. Varios se presentaron. Dentro de ellos aprobaron para mí y mi persona. Económicamente me ha ayudado bastante pues comencé a ganar un poquito más. Cuando me eligieron comencé a dar cursos. Mi fin eran ya ellos. Me dije: ‘voy a enseñarles a ver si algún día llegan a exportar siquiera un monedero o una cartera’. Una vez que aprendan ellos y ya se pueden enlazar en ese negocio”.

Simona, ¿qué sintió en ese momento cuando ganó el concurso de asistencia técnica? ¿Qué impacto tuvo en su trabajo como bordadora y capacitadora? ¿Qué impacto tuvo en acrecentar su autoestima y en aumentar los ingresos de su familia?

Los ojos de Simona se iluminaron y, sonriéndome, me contestó: “Para mí ha sido una alegría poder enseñar a un grupo de mujeres. Las mujeres en realidad estamos en la casa no más. Los hombres a veces trabajan y son machistas por el hecho que ellos trabajan y nosotras en casa no más. Yo siempre he pensado cómo se podía reunir a las señoras para yo enseñarles pero no tenía esa oportunidad, pero ahora con Sierra Sur ha habido pues y estuve alegre. Estuve alegre para que ellas pudieran obtener y llevar para la casa como yo lo llevé y ya en la casa ya tienen lo suficiente y ya pueden comer fruta que antes no se podían comer”.

Por lo que me dice, Simona, su trabajo ha tenido un impacto positivo en la alimentación de la familia, ¿es así?
“Sí, en la alimentación de la familia. Eso es como un pan de diario el arte que tengo.”

Y ¿cuál fue la reacción de su familia, de su esposo, ante su trabajo de capacitadora? ¿Estaban contentos?

“Sí, él estaba contento, también mis hijos contentos. ‘Enséñales, mami, que tienen que aprender’, me decían. A veces me tocaban en las temporadas bajas hacer cursos entonces no hay negocio. Entonces mi familia ya tenía para vivir y mejoró, mejoró.”

Simona, ¿y cómo ve su trabajo la Comunidad del Valle del Colca?, ¿cómo la ven, la aprecian?
“Bueno, la mayoría me aprecian. Antiguamente no se vendía, y ellos vendían su tostadito, su tunita. Entonces yo veía una vez que fui abajo, dije por qué no les dejo mi ‘arte’. ‘No tenemos plata’, nos decían. ‘Yo misma con mis manos, si no tienen plata, yo les dejo. Vénganse 15 días y en 15 días me lo traen.’ Entonces así sucesivamente les he dejado a las señoras la artesanía para que se vendan (¡hasta hamacas!) y después de vender me devolvían el dinero. Así hemos podido mejorar. Para mí eran felices, ¿no?, porque ellas también que se lleven algo y también va a llover para mí y también he abierto un mercado en Yanque. En Yanque no había ni un artesano. Entonces yo fui a Yanque, dicen que hay turismo. ‘Mejor en la madrugada bajo, agarro un taxi con mi máquina. Bajo y me pongo a vender, y así que me ven las señoras, ellas también van a hacer esfuerzo para que se venda.’ Me fui de viaje a España y cuando regresé de España donde estuve en una fiera, ya había tres señoras vendiendo artesanía en la Plaza de Armas en Yanque. Ya ves.”

Simona, cuénteme qué le parece: ¿cómo percibe usted y su comunidad el trabajo del proyecto Sierra Sur?, ¿con el proyecto han ganado las mujeres?
“Para mí está muy bien, Sierra Sur está bien porque ha entrado en buena hora y ahora las señoras ya trabajan, ya llevan algo a la casa, ya tienen su entrada, y tienen ya para decir, acá yo también tengo mi parte, pongo mi parte. Y ha sido bueno porque yo realmente me he dado cuenta que hasta para mí, para todas ellas ha sido bueno. Ha sido bueno.”

Simona, ¿y ha tenido un impacto también en, digamos, en el presupuesto de la familia, para la comida, educación y salud?
“Si, en la salud, hasta ahorros. Yo también estoy en el grupo de las mujeres ahorradoras. Entonces ha sido bueno. Todas saben bordar y aun así no estamos llenando el mercado. Porque hay muchos. Toditos ya saben. Todo el Valle ya sabemos, porque antes en esta parte alta no sabían nada, no sabían nada. Para mí no hay competencia, no disminuye mi trabajo.”

Simona, por último: ¿hay alguna cosa que le gustaría hacer o que le falta por hacer? “Sí, como yo podría enseñar a los niños en la escuela. O sea, desde niños ya uno debe de aprender para que no se pierda esta cultura. Esa es mi meta que tengo, porque hay niños también que quieren aprender.”


Elizabeth Farmosi

Learning about territorial rural development, cultural maps and ecotourism

Wednesday, 20 January 2010. Departure from Chivay to Sibayo. Breathtaking landscape with rugged mountains, steep gorges, stone walls, some alpaca and cattle, very few people. We arrive in the small town that is in a process of reconstruction, fully on the basis of its low stone houses and thatched roofs. Martin from Malawi likes the place so much he'd like to stay. Today it’s Maria Hartl’s time to get altitude sick, and Lorena from the Lima office takes good care of her, after a visit to the health post Maria retreats to the room. This is also the town that won the support for the underground electricity connections with its elaborate play at the CLAR yesterday. We visit the Sumac Pallay handicraft association that has managed to start a medium-scale business processing the wool of the 20 members. With a local trainer and some matching grant support, their lives have clearly improved. Yet for further growth they are still dependent on grants, and for the assets they own it's surprising that the only financial service they use is a savings account. All seems to be targeted at tourism. It intrigues me that there aren't any tourists, but Raúl, the mayor, assures me they come in organised tours by the busload year-round.

We continue through the picturesque town, past stone walls on which cacti were planted to discourage animals from climbing across. Next is a company of 10 local partners producing trout in many large tanks built and owned by the municipality. The tanks are managed by the company under a contract, without rent, and have a capacity to produce 5 t of fresh fish per month. The business is new, albeit well operational, and according to Raúl it represents a model for economic development. However, for an investment as large as this it appears that more partners could be involved, and possibly it might have been more equitable and less risky to set it up as smaller units.

He then proceeds to give a passionate presentation in a thatch hall, outlining his development approach in working with local associations and companies that need to compete for public support. He likes incentives. The municipality provided a laptop to the best scholar of the agricultural college, it subsidises thatched roofs, English courses, daily pay for road works for residents, lots of things. And he likes competitions. Any support the municipality provides it allocates through public competitions: pasture improvements, rehabilitation of houses, reforestation. What could be a sleepy little town is actually a dynamic local capital that manages to leverage 14 Sol for every Sol of its budget, and a participatory budget at that.

After the warm midday sun the cold sets in. We follow a couple of presentations on the concept of territorial rural development, cultural maps and ecotourism, and after a good round of comments and questions disappear with our host families to their rustic guest houses where we'll spend the night. Janvier, Benson and I are staying with Dora, a little lady in her 50s with traditional dress, and share a room that fits just about 3 beds and a table. Very homely, simple, clean. We help ourselves to coca tea, and for the joint dinner in the town hall Elizabeth Farmosi arrives in traditional Colca dress. After dinner there’s music with a local group, we move out to the log fire that struggles badly with the thin air, but when it finally gets going there’s dancing around the fireplace until we’re all warm and tired.

Claus Reiner, Country Programme Manager, Rwanda