Judith Mwikali Musau has successfully introduced the use of grafted plants for crop and fruit harvesting. IFAD says it is clear that a new revolution in agriculture is needed to transform the sector. Credit:Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Silvia Giannelli
ROME, Apr 16 2014 (IPS)

The Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015 is fast approaching, but according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), poverty still afflicts one in seven people — and one in eight still goes to bed hungry.

Together with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), IFAD unveiled the results of their joint work Apr. 3 to develop five targets to be incorporated in the post-2015 development agenda."We have a growing global population and a deteriorating natural resource base." -- Kanayo F. Nwanze, president of IFAD

These targets include access to adequate food all year round for all people; ending malnutrition in all its forms with special attention to stunting; making all food production systems more productive, sustainable, resilient and efficient; securing access for all small food producers, especially women, to inputs, knowledge and resources to increase their productivity; and more efficient post-production food systems that reduce the global rate of food loss and waste by 50 percent.

IPS correspondent Silvia Giannelli interviewed Kanayo F. Nwanze, president of IFAD, on the role of rural poverty and food security in shaping the current debate on the definition of a new development agenda.

Q: Do you think it is time to rethink the strategies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals?

A: It’s not only that I think, I know it. And that is why we have Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are being fashioned. The SDGs are an idea that was born in the Rio Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012. The crafting of a new global development agenda is a unique opportunity to refocus policy, investments and partnerships on inclusive and sustainable rural transformation.

The intent is to produce a new, more inclusive and more sustainable set of global development objectives that have application to all countries. These goals – once agreed by governments – would take effect after the current MDGs expire in 2015.

And measurement will be crucial if we are to achieve what we set out. This is why we are talking about universality but in a local context. The SDGs will be for all countries, developing and developed alike. But their application will need to respond to the reality on the ground, which will vary from country to country.

Q: How do the five targets revealed this month fit in this discussion on the post-2015 development goals?

A: The proposed targets and indicators are intended to provide governments with an informed tool that they use when discussing the precise nature and make-up of the SDGs related to sustainable agriculture, food security and nutrition.

These are five critical issues for a universal, transformative agenda that is ambitious but also realistic and adaptable to different country and regional contexts. The targets can fit under a possible dedicated goal but also under other goals. So, it is for governments to decide whether or not they wish to include these targets in the SDGs.

Kanayo F. Nwanze, president of IFAD, says it is clear that a new revolution in agriculture is needed to transform the sector so it can fully live up to its potential to drive sustainable development. Credit: Juan Manuel Barrero/IPS

Q: Why does agriculture represent such a critical aspect within the post-2015 development agenda?

A: We have a growing global population and a deteriorating natural resource base, which means more people to feed with less water and farmland. And climate change threatens to alter the whole geography of agriculture and food systems on a global scale.

It is clear that we need a new revolution in agriculture, to transform the sector so it can fully live up to its potential to drive sustainable development. Target areas should address universal and context-specific challenges, but context-adapted approaches and agendas are the building blocks for any effort to feed the world.

Q: Why is the focus on rural areas so important in order to overcome inequality?

A: The world is becoming increasingly urban, yet cities are still fed by the people working the land in rural areas. And it is in those rural areas where 76 percent of the world’s poor live.

At IFAD we see that the gap between rich and poor is primarily a gap between urban and rural. Those who migrate to urban areas, oftentimes do so in the belief that life will be better in the urban cities.

However they get caught up in the bulging slums of cities, they lose their social cohesion which is provided by rural communities and they go into slums, they become nothing but breeding ground for social turmoil and desperation. One only has to look at what is happening today in what was described as the ‘Arab spring’.

Q: But beyond the issue of exclusion and turmoil, why is key to addressing rural poverty?

A: Because the rural space is basically where the food is produced: in the developing world 80 percent in some cases 90 percent of all food that is consumed domestically is produced in rural areas.

Food agriculture does not grow in cities, it grows in rural areas, and the livelihoods of the majority of the rural population provide not only food, it provides employment, it provides economic empowerment,[…] and social cohesion.

Essentially, if we do not invest in rural areas through agricultural development we are dismantling the foundations for national security, not just only food security. And that translates into not just national security but also global security and global peace.

Q: What risks are we facing in terms of global security, if we don’t face and take concrete action to ensure food security?

A: We just need to go back to what happened in 2007 and 2008: the global food price crisis, as it is said, and how circumstances culminated in what happened in 40 countries around the world where there were food riots.

Those riots were the results of inaction that occurred in some 25-30 years due to these investments in agriculture and the imbalances in trade, across countries and across continents. Forty countries experienced serious problems with food riots, and they brought down two governments, one in Haiti and another one in Madagascar. […] We’ve seen it, [and] it continues to repeat itself.

Q: What role are developed countries expected to play in the achievement of these five targets?

A: All countries will have an essential role to play in achieving the SDGs – whatever they end up looking like. Countries have agreed that this is a “universal” agenda and developed countries’ commitment will have to extend beyond ODA [Official Development Assistance] alone.

At IFAD we [are] seeing that development is moving beyond aid to achieve self-sustaining, private sector-led inclusive growth and development. For example, in Africa, generated revenue shot up from 141 billion dollars in 2002 to 520 billion dollars in 2011. This is truly a universal challenge, but it also requires local and country-level ownership and international collaboration at all levels.

Excerpt:

Yolanda Chaucayaqui shows the scale model of what her town, Yanaquihua, will look like. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

By Milagros Salazar
QUEQUEÑA, Peru , Aug 15 2013 (IPS)

Women and young people are central players in dozens of small businesses and environmental protection plans that are changing the lives of poor rural families in the Andes highlands of southern Peru.

The initiatives are financed by the government programme Sierra Sur and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

In her colourful traditional indigenous outfit, Yolanda Chaucayaqui shows a grey scale model that reflects what things were like until recently in her town, Yanaquihua, where deforestation and informal sector mining reigned.

Then she smiles as she shows another, brightly-coloured, scale model, which reflects the future she dreams of: avocado orchards kept green with a drip irrigation system, a water tank – and no mining.

“We want our town to be free of all of these negative things, and we are working to forge the way to a different kind of future,” she tells IPS.

Chaucayaqui rode seven hours in a cart from Yanaquihua to Quequeña, a smaller town in the region of Arequipa where hundreds of campesinos or peasant farmers took part in the last Sierra Sur/IFAD projects fair, on Aug. 3.

The fair was attended by IFAD president Kanayo Nwanze from Nigeria, who told IPS that he was pleased with the advances made, and especially with the strong presence of women.

Peru has been working with the specialised United Nations agency for 20 years, fomenting the creation of small enterprises that improve the lives of poor rural families.

Some 18,000 families have benefited from the second phase of the Sierra Sur programme in the regions of Apurímac, Arequipa, Cuzco, Puno, Moquegua and Tacna.

Of that total, 48 percent of the participants were women committed to business and natural resource management plans, who have managed to join the financial system by opening savings accounts, José Vilcherrez, the head of project evaluation and monitoring for Sierra Sur II, tells IPS.

In these southern regions, 550 business plans are being carried out, each one involving around 20 men and women. On average, 80 percent of each business is financed by the government programme, with loans from IFAD, while the remaining 20 percent comes from the community.“These women win a new space in their families, respect from their husbands and their kids. They start to be listened to.” -- José Vilcherrez

Each project is chosen through a transparent selection process in fairs like the one held in Quequeña, by the local fund allotment committee, made up of residents and authorities from the participating villages and towns.

The businesses are diverse, and women participate in almost all of the activities, from livestock-raising and pasture improvement to bakeries, dairy products, textiles and craft-making.

“These women win a new space in their families, respect from their husbands and their kids. They start to be listened to,” says Vilcherrez, who is evaluating the impact of Sierra Sur on the female population, to determine how support from the programme can be improved.

Women have asked for more information, in order to gain access to new areas of business activity, and to learn about their rights, the expert explained.

Nelly Roxana Cheña presides over a group of local craftswomen in the region of Puno. Thanks to her involvement in Sierra Sur, she discovered her talent for knitting and began to earn money to pay for schooling for her children.

“We have never appreciated our talents,” she tells IPS. “But thanks to the training, we rise at four in the morning, we get our housework done, and we work hard, to pull ahead. We want to continue to receive training,” she enthuses, surrounded by her fellow knitters and balls of yarn and wool caps.

Cheña says the women in her town are actively involved in protecting the environment. There are 127 natural resource management plans in the southern regions, where families are carrying out activities to preserve and administer water sources and soil. The best projects are rewarded with funds from the programme.

“We want to contribute to the recovery of our villages,” says Rosemary Quispe, from Cuzco region. “We want to live in nice, neat houses while preserving the natural resources for ourselves and the next generations,” adds the 19-year-old, one of the many young people taking part in the Sierra Sur projects.

Since late 2012, IFAD has been encouraging youth participation in rural areas of Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Peru, providing financial and technical support through the Young Rural Entrepreneurs programme.

In Peru, 344 young people are involved in 28 rural enterprises, half of them in the south of the country.

“Young people have few opportunities to stay in their village, which fuels poverty and migration,” Wilder Mamani, the head of Procasur, an NGO that works in partnership with IFAD, tells IPS.

Sinthia Yucra, 21, decided to stay in her village, and is generating income for her family by raising chickens.

She lives in the village of Lucre, in Cuzco region, more than 3,000 metres above sea level, where she and nine other young people now have 1,000 hens and another 1,000 chicks. Eight of the 10 people involved in the project are women.

“This has strengthened my family and brought us closer together,” Yucra tells IPS. “I never thought our parents would support us. This is exciting. I have a lot of plans for my village.”

The group, who clarified that they don’t believe in welfare-style assistance, took out a loan to launch the small business and build the sheds. They are now being trained by Procasur technicians and plan to hire an economist, to prepare for selling their products to supermarkets.

IFAD president Kanayo Nwanze, interviewed by IPS at the end of his Aug. 2-8, 2013 visit to Peru and Colombia. Credit: Juan Manuel Barrero/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Aug 12 2013 (IPS)

“There is no development without peace. It should be understood that, for there to be development in a country, there must be an internal peace process,” says Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

With respect to Colombia, the Nigerian expert in agricultural development said: “We have to create a platform of trust” in abandoned rural communities.

IFAD is the only United Nations agency created to provide financial support to peasants and smallholder farmers. It works with governments, but in bottom-to-top projects. Organised groups of people propose their own initiatives which compete for funding, through the Agriculture Ministry in the case of Colombia.

The funds are managed by the communities themselves. More than 1,700 projects presented by Colombian rural groups obtained support that way through the IFAD-Rural Opportunities project that began in 2007 and is now coming to an end.

IFAD is now launching a new programme in Colombia through the Agriculture Ministry, which will act in war zones, termed “territorial consolidation areas” by the government – a controversial concept involving both questions of security and development.“IFAD is not a top-down institution, it is bottom-up. You walk with the communities. They have to be part of the project. They have to own it.” -- Kanayo Nwanze

“Small and medium enterprises in rural areas are a source of generating social stability in countries,” Nwanze says in this interview with IPS in Bogotá at the end of his Aug. 2-8 visit to Peru and Colombia.

Nwanze met with the presidents of both countries – Ollanta Humala of Peru and Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia – and visited rural communities.

Q: IFAD has wide experience working in conflict zones to bring development and to help to build peace. How can this experience be applied in Colombia?

A: We have found in many parts of Africa and Asia – India is a very good example – where, if there is ability to organise rural populations, women and men and children, and give them opportunities to have gainful employment…youth in particular are less likely to be attracted by rhetoric and extremism.

Just a few days ago we launched a new programme called TOP (Trust & Opportunities Project), which takes the first project into a different dimension, a much higher dimension.

Trust & Opportunities, we believe, will contribute significantly to bringing hope, economic development, and social inclusiveness to rural areas of Colombia. And we hope that this process will contribute to peace and development in Colombia.

Q: Most of the places where the new project will be deployed in Colombia are still war zones. What kind of concrete difficulties could that pose?

A: I can talk from our experiences elsewhere. A good example is…projects involving community development and natural resource management in communities of the northeastern states of India.

The primary impact of that project was not only community development and management of natural resources, but [the fact that] it generated such economic benefits that young people who formally were engaged in extremism now had jobs, and it reduced the rate of insurgency.

You see, IFAD is a unique institution. Apart from being a specialised U.N. agency, which gives us…global legitimacy and trust by populations and governments, [we have] the ability to organise rural populations, so that they have…their own structural governance platform to operate.

You need a mechanism where you can build trust, between the populations in the war zone and the governments. And this is what IFAD is fantastic at doing. We trust and we are trusted by the communities; they see us as their friends. The governments we work with – in Colombia [for instance] – see us as very apolitical [and that] our interests are basically for the populations and for the national policy dialogue.

The difficulties that people often face in these communities is the way…an idea or a concept [is presented to them] – you have to avoid just parachuting in and telling them ‘this is what you have to do’.

IFAD is not a top-down institution, it is bottom-up. You walk with the communities. They have to be part of the project. They have to own it. And that way they are committed to it; when they own it they want it to succeed; if it is parachuted from the top, they reject it.

And there is no other institution that I know of within the U.N. system or within the international financial institutions that goes to the remotest and most difficult areas in the countries. IFAD does.

Q: Is the new TOP in line with Colombia´s policies?

A: First of all, I think it is important to understand that IFAD only works with governments. IFAD does not define for governments what governments should do. IFAD works with governments, partners and rural populations, to define the programme that they want.

Now, President Santos’ major priority today is peace and inclusive development. So what do we do? We say OK.

We have allocated 25 million dollars. That is nothing for Colombia. But what we bring is knowledge and experience on how we work with rural populations. So, we are a facilitator…[and] our programmes are defined by the strategy and the priority of the governments for its people.

Our programmes are not political. But the outputs, the results can have political impact, because they bring about political stability and trust in the community, which is the foundation for peace.

In Latin America – in Brazil, Peru or Guatemala – or in different countries in Africa or Asia, when you go to the community, you see the commitment and the excitement they have, for the simple fact that they are now doing dignified activities that are generating money.

Do you think that they want to take up arms against the government? No. That is so fundamental.

Q: What general impression did you get from your trip to Peru and Colombia?

A: In both countries I was impressed. In Peru, because of the president’s commitment to agriculture and rural development. I’m also impressed with the emphasis that is given to creating peace through investment in development, in both countries.

Unless we have stable and vibrant rural communities, we cannot achieve sustainable development in any country, because you always have this gap between those who have and those who have not. And when the gap gets to [a certain] point, it’s like a string that snaps. And when it snaps, you have political crisis.

Excerpt:

Local campesino Omar Caicedo shows IFAD president Kanayo Nwanze the fruits of his land, in Colombia’s biodiverse Pacific coastal region. Credit: Juan Manuel Barrero/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Aug 7 2013 (IPS)

“I was a hunter. I killed many animals,” said Rosalino Ortiz, a representative of Mashiramo, a campesino organisation that monitors biodiversity in Colombia’s Massif range in the southern department of Huila.

After taking workshops organised by the Rural Opportunities programme of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) “your mentality changes,” Ortiz said. “And I started planning a business” with 23 other campesinos (small farmers), he added.

Now Ortiz talks about ecotourism. And he said “we have more money.”

After receiving training from the programme, he is well-versed in computers, and plans to become a forest engineer “to bring skills to the organisation.”

“It’s one of the best programmes,” said Cielo Báez with the Asociación de Productores Agroecológicos de la Cuenca del Río Anaime (APACRA), an association of agroecological farmers in the Anaime river watershed.

“They transfer the funds to our account. They trust us, the grassroots communities,” she told IPS.

“We decide what we really need, which is the reason for the programme’s success. Many people make those decisions from their desks,” and decide what tools to send communities, without consulting them – materials that end up “piled in some corner,” added Báez, whose association is in the mountainous municipality of Cajamarca in the central department of Tolima.

The families belonging to APACRA, who take turns collectively working on the members’ farms, are no longer intimidated by receiving a 15,000-dollar loan because, said Báez, “we have the support of an accountant and an auditor.”

“IFAD, through Rural Opportunities, has enabled our families to have a better quality of life,” she said. “Because they work in an integral manner, we grow stronger as a whole.

“We have trained with them. We are 15 families with more or less two youngsters each: some 30 youngsters who have had access to education. Now they are still campesinos, but with studies. And we involve the entire family: the elderly, the children,” she added.

The key to obtaining support from Rural Opportunities/IFAD is the word “business.” The programme has managed to bring together campesinos in associations in vastly different parts of the country.

Andrés Silva, director of Rural Opportunities, spoke with Báez and Ortiz under the gaze of IFAD president Kanayo Nwanze, who came to Colombia after visiting projects in Peru backed by the specialised United Nations agency, which was created to support development initiatives among the poorest rural populations around the world.

“This is the horn plantain. This is cacao. Here we have beans. We also have tamarind,” another campesino, Omar Caicedo, showed Nwanze.

Caicedo belongs to the Cooperativa Agropecuaria de Usuarios Campesinos del Patía, a campesino cooperative in the southwest department of Cauca.

Nwanze, a Nigerian expert in agricultural entomology, was familiar with most of the fruits and vegetables he was shown. Until Caicedo pointed to the “hacepuede, an exotic fruit. It’s sweet, you can try it in juice, or just like this. It’s also medicinal. You can drink it when you’re fasting. It helps fight amoebas,” the campesino explained.

The president of IFAD said that “when a few years ago, in my campaign for governments and for the development community to recognise small agriculture as a business, and to make it attractive for the youth, I didn’t know all this was already being done in Colombia.”

Nwanze said he was “very impressed to see young people taking agriculture and agriculture-related activities as a money-generating business.”

IPS has also come into contact with other community projects backed by Rural Opportunities/IFAD, such as Ecopollo, run by female heads of households in the Asociación Municipal de Mujeres Campesinas de Lebrija (AMMUCALE), an association of campesino women in the east-central department of Santander.

Thanks to the large sheds where they raise 1,800 chickens, which they sell in markets and nearby stores, or to local families, some of the women have even managed to send their children to university.

The women involved in Ecopollo – which means ecochicken – say they have raised their children to love the countryside, and their university studies are for them to bring new skills and knowledge when they come back to Lebrija.

Another project is the Corporación de Recuperación Comunera del Lienzo in the town of Charalá, also in Santander, where 70 farming families set up a production chain that stretches from the cultivation of organic cotton to the Museum of Linen.

The museum, which operates in a large corner house in the town of Charalá, displays traditional weaving and dyeing techniques of the Guane indigenous people, who are now extinct in that region, once famous for its fabrics and weaving.

Rural Opportunities/IFAD began its work in 2007 and formally ends this year, after financing more than 1,700 projects. Now it must reinvent itself.

“We won’t invest in the same families,” the programme’s director, Silva, told IPS.

The idea is for the associations that have become small rural companies to share their best practices with other groups of local families, and to help them avoid the mistakes they themselves have made along the way, in order to multiply the experience.

One of the central objectives is to keep people from moving to the cities by offering alternative livelihoods in rural areas.

The campesinos of Mashiramo are focusing on becoming a local network that helps link up other organisations: “We’ll be the businesspeople, who share our knowledge and experience,” Ortiz said.

The result: organised knowledge that can be shared and replicated.

But not only the communities have learned along the way. It has also been a learning experience for the agriculture ministry.

“We have learned we have to support people, seek out knowledge, dig out the treasures from the local cultures, encourage the spread of local talent beyond the families,” Silva said.

IFAD president Kanayo Nwanze, with Peru’s agriculture minister, Milton von Hesse, to his right, meeting with local campesinas in the highlands town of Quequeña. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

By Milagros Salazar
QUEQUEÑA, Peru , Aug 7 2013 (IPS)

Some 40 multicoloured tents were set up to showcase the fruits of community-based rural development projects in the main square of this village in southern Peru during a visit by IFAD president Kanayo Nwanze.

The event organised in this highlands community in the southern Peruvian department of Arequipa showed the fruits of 20 years of collaboration between the specialised United Nations agency and this South American country.

Dishes made with the protein-rich quinoa; mushrooms that grow 4,000 metres above sea level; chubby guinea pigs; brightly coloured garments; homegrown honey; different kinds of cheese; and scale models of towns, rivers and valleys were presented while a popular local band played.

On his first trip to Peru, the Nigerian expert who heads IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) visited Quequeña on Aug. 3, where products made by community projects in Arequipa and the neighbouring southern departments of Moquegua, Cuzco and Puno were displayed.

“It’s not strange that Peru has been the laboratory where we decided to launch these initiatives,” Josefina Stubbs, director of IFAD’s Latin America and Caribbean Division, told IPS.

Stubbs, who accompanied Nwanze, said the Local Resource Allocation Committees (LRACs) developed in southern Peru have drawn attention from other countries, like Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia.

Peruvian technical experts involved in the project will soon travel to China to share their experiences, which are focused on meeting needs in communities based on the transparent community management of resources, said Stubbs.

The funds IFAD provides the Peruvian government are transferred to the communities’ own bank accounts, explained the expert from the Dominican Republic.

The project in southern Peru is the oldest of the three that the government is carrying out in rural areas with loans and technical advice from IFAD.

Here in Arequipa, the communities design and implement their own productive initiatives, which help generate income to cover their basic needs. Crop improvement, guinea pig and livestock raising, weaving and gastronomic undertakings using local products are some of the projects.

“IFAD supports the government’s efforts to enable people to produce enough to have access to buy something to feed themselves,” Nwanze told IPS.

On Sunday, the head of IFAD visited the highland villages of Sibayo and Callalli, which are also in Arequipa, before returning to Lima on Monday and flying from there to Colombia, where similar projects are being carried out.

Every three years, IFAD distributes some 300 to 400 million dollars in loans for agricultural and rural development in Latin America, where it supports a range of projects in nearly every country in the region.

Nwanze added that the next step for Peru would be to strengthen the decentralisation of the management of the projects so the “regional authorities take responsibility for the programme and the financing.” He mentioned the progress IFAD has made along those lines in Argentina and Brazil.

Stubbs said the idea was for more villages and towns to adopt this kind of initiative. With that aim, IFAD authorities met Saturday morning with the governor of Arequipa, Juan Manuel Guillén. A working group will now be created to launch this new stage, she said.

For his part, Peru’s minister of agriculture, Milton von Hesse, praised IFAD for seeing campesinos as “the most qualified to decide what kind of technical assistance they need” and for fomenting connections between markets.

The important thing is that the products made by local campesinos make it outside their communities, and even outside the country, he said.

“It has been 20 years of continuous learning; we have also made mistakes,” he told IPS. “But what is important is that successful experiences have been incorporated in our public policies, and we will continue doing that with all of the lessons that are learned.”

In middle-income countries like Peru, IFAD continues to grant loans, but it especially provides technical assistance because, as Stubbs said, “macroeconomic stability will not by itself bring development.

“For the first time, I have the privilege to see that all of the governments, of whatever political stripe, have really understood that closing the inequality gap is in everyone’s interest,” she said.

Juan Moreno, programme manager for IFAD’s Latin America and Caribbean Division, informed IPS that the agency only has an allotment of 25 million dollars for working with Peru through 2015.

“We don’t have one billion dollars, like the World Bank,” Stubbs said. “Latin America doesn’t need IFAD’s money – it needs IFAD’s knowledge.”

To illustrate, she mentioned the case of Argentina, which two years ago launched a 150 million dollar project, of which IFAD only supplied seven million dollars. Most of the funds came from the government itself.

In the midst of regional economic growth based in large part on the extractive industries, Stubbs said governments and civil society should exercise more oversight of the activities of mining and other industries, to preserve water sources and land, which poor rural populations depend on for subsistence.

She said every country should undertake its own kind of development, depending on its ecosystem.

Nwanze, meanwhile, said governments should invest in infrastructure like roads to generate new opportunities for local development. He added that in rural areas, “when particularly women have access to economic empowerment, the community starts to change.”

He said it is difficult to say, in a few words, how to fight poverty. But he added that access to basic services is key to working with the most disadvantaged communities from a human rights perspective.

“For me, human rights are basically in everything, it is not only a question of people having freedom of speech,” the Nigerian expert said before heading to his next destination.