International Fund for Agricultural Development

Description

In partnership with recipient governments, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) provides more than $1 billion annually to support programs and projects in rural areas that empower people to grow more food, improve nutrition, better manage natural resources, learn new skills, start small businesses, build strong community-centered organizations, and gain a voice in decisions that affect their lives.

What does it buy?

Funds are used for loans, grants, co-financing, and other instruments available to support projects in rural areas. Funds will go toward the first installment for IFAD’s 12th Replenishment (IFAD-12; F.Y. 2022-2024). IFAD aims to double and deepen its impact in reducing rural poverty and food insecurity while cultivating inclusive growth that lifts youth, women, Indigenous people, and other underserved populations from deprivation to productivity and sufficiency—all essential to achieving the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal to end hunger by 2030 (SDG2).

Why is it important?

• 63% of the world’s poor work in agriculture.
• IFAD’s projects are valued at $17.3 billion, benefitting 131.7 million people in 90 countries and Gaza and the West Bank.
• All IFAD projects are country-led and country-owned, designed in consultation with smallholder farmers and other rural beneficiaries, and strongly focused on inclusion.
• 24% of IFAD investment was in countries with fragile situations, with $391 million invested, and 90% of IFAD investment going to low-income and lower-middle-income countries.
• In 2019, IFAD had 203 ongoing projects, and as a result of these projects and programs, IFAD beneficiaries increased their production by 44%, market access by 76%, resilience by 13%, and economic mobility by 74%.
• As of September 2019, IFAD committed $244 million toward climate finance across 15 approved projects, 28% of the total commitment made for the IFAD-11.
• In 2018, IFAD-supported projects constructed or repaired 8,645 km of roads, trained 2.6 million people in crop and livestock production practices and technologies, and supported 2.6 million people in coping with the effects of climate change.
• As a result of IFAD projects relative to comparable nonbeneficiaries, IFAD beneficiaries increased their production by 44%, increased their resilience by 13%, increased their market access by 76%, and increased their economic mobility by 74%.

Why should Americans care?

• IFAD funds increase resilience, improve food security and contribute to poverty reduction—ultimately improving the quality of life for (and lessening the need for U.S. emergency food and security assistance to) rural, vulnerable populations—reducing the conditions that contribute to conflict and instability.
• U.S. producers and consumers benefit from the economic development that leads to recipient countries increasing purchases of American farm exports. In the past 20 years, U.S. agricultural exports to developing countries grew by 103% while exports to developed countries increased by only 19%.

COVID-19 Impacts

• In April 2020, IFAD launched a multi-donor COVID-19 Rural Poor Stimulus Facility to provide a more scaled-up response to the pandemic. The Facility safeguards food security and resilience by ensuring timely access to inputs, information, markets, and liquidity.

What more could be done?

• Additional funding can scale out the Rural Poor Stimulus Facility to reach additional rural people in need. To reach the scale needed, IFAD aims to mobilize at least $200 million from all donors.