International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

About:

The International Fund For Agricultural Development (IFAD) is an international financial institution and specialized United Nations agency based in Rome, the UN’s food and agriculture hub. It invests in rural people, empower them to increase their food security, improve the nutrition of their families and increase their incomes. IFAD helps them build resilience, expand their businesses and take charge of their own development. Since 1978, we have provided over US$21 billion in grants and low-interest loans to projects that have reached about 491 million people..

Every community, no matter how neglected or remote, has one tremendous resource: its people. Three quarters of the poorest people in the world live in the rural areas of developing countries. Most of them depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Climate change, a growing global population, and volatile food and energy prices have the potential to push millions more vulnerable people into extreme poverty and hunger by 2030.. At the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) we invest in rural people, empowering them to increase their food security, improve the nutrition of their families and increase their incomes. We help them build resilience, expand their businesses and take charge of their own development.

Strategic Framework:

The world faces massive economic, social and environmental challenges. In today’s globalized world, these problems cannot be solved by individual governments alone. IFAD’s Strategic Framework 2016-2025 sets out how we will work over the coming decade in order to play a crucial role in the inclusive and sustainable transformation of rural areas. It articulates our contribution to the 2030 Agenda, including the larger role IFAD will play in supporting countries to fulfil their priorities relative to the Agenda.

The framework outlines that we will work in ways that are bigger, better and smarter: bigger, by mobilizing and leveraging substantially greater investment in rural areas; better, by strengthening the quality of countries’ rural development programmes; and smarter, by further sharpening our efficiency and delivering results in a more cost-effective way. The Framework sets three strategic objectives:

• increasing the productive capacity of poor rural people
• increasing their benefits from market participation
• strengthening the environmental sustainability and climate resilience of their economic activities.

Download our Strategic Framework to see how IFAD’s agenda and investments help support smallholder agriculture development and rural transformation today and in the years ahead.

Vision:

Rural transformation that lasts: We envision vibrant, inclusive and sustainable rural economies, where people live free from poverty and hunger.

Mission

Our mission is to transform rural economies and food systems by making them more inclusive, productive, resilient and sustainable. We invest in the millions of people who are most at risk of being left behind: poor, small-scale food producers, women, young people and other vulnerable groups living in rural areas.

IFAD is the only specialized global development organisation exclusively focused on and dedicated to transforming agriculture, rural economies and food systems. We target our support to reach the last mile and remotest areas, to help millions of rural people to:

• Increase their productivity and access markets;
• Create and access jobs and rural economic growth;
• Increase their incomes, move out of poverty and improve their food and nutrition security;
• Build their resilience in the face of a changing climate and manage the natural resource base sustainably;
• Improve their coping mechanisms in fragile and conflict environments;
• Strengthen their voice, capacities and organizations.

IFAD catalyses public and private investments, helps strengthen policies and promotes innovation, in order to achieve sustainable benefits for the poor at scale and support all countries to achieve lasting, systemic change. We work with governments, the private sector, civil society and other development partners and use a range of instruments, tools and knowledge to respond to the challenges facing countries with the most critical needs.