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Even as the latest Sahel food crisis and renewed instability in Mali garner international headlines, IFAD-financed agricultural projects in Niger are achieving results against the odds. This may not be the Niger story that usually makes the news, but it is a compelling one nonetheless.

“When the massacres began in 1993 we were forced to take sides, seeking protection with either the government or the rebels”, says Jean-Claude Sindayihebura, who is from Burambi in Bururi province. “Sometimes families and friends found themselves divided. There was terrible poverty; it no longer felt like our own country. It was a living hell.”

Small-scale fishing communities in Mozambique struggle to eke out a living in remote areas with depleting resources. An IFAD-supported project has helped build artisanal fishers’ capacity to improve their livelihoods while reducing pressure on resources, and to link with higher authorities to ensure that their concerns are voiced at the ministerial level.

ROME, Italy, 5 March 2012 – As the world marks International Women’s Day this week, IFAD and its partners are pursuing new ways to advance the fundamental rights of poor rural girls and women at the household level.

As popular discontent swept across much of the Arab world over the past year, some observers were puzzled. “How is it,” asked the World Bank’s World Development Report 2011, “that countries in the Middle East and North Africa could face explosions of popular grievances despite, in some cases, sustained high growth and improvement in social indicators?”

An innovative scheme in Egypt is creating work for the country’s large number of unemployed graduates and boosting the economy by reclaiming agricultural land from the desert.

When is an equity investment fund more than just a money machine? When it focuses on development rather than quick riches. That’s exactly what a unique IFAD project has been doing in Armenia since 2009, with investments in the country’s food-processing sector designed to expand markets and improve the economic prospects of smallholder farmers. Known as the Fund for Rural Economic Development in Armenia (FREDA), the initiative combines elements of both development assistance and banking.

In the cold mountain regions of Armenia, keeping warm has traditionally been a time- and resource-consuming business. But today, people in upland villages are able to keep warm more easily thanks to the availability of cheap and environmentally friendly piped gas.

Population pressure and a changing climate are are eroding the natural asset base of poor rural people in many parts of Mali, and contributing to a situation of escalating environmental degradation, hunger and poverty. The IFAD-supported Sahelian Areas Development Fund Programme (FODESA ), implemented in the Sahel region of central Mali, is a large-scale natural resource management initiative, designed to help local populations restore damaged ecosystems and build resilience to a harsher climate.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union spelled independence to millions of people in the 15 Soviet republics. But it also dealt a devastating blow to standards of living and development across the region as countries struggled to adapt to a market-oriented economy. A hard-won return to growth in the early years of this century was then cut short by the global economic crisis.

IFAD-supported farmer field schools use experiential learning and participatory group approaches to help farmers make decisions, solve problems and acquire new skills and techniques. Those who apply what they learn are reaping the benefits of higher yields. As farmers share their knowledge with neighbours, productivity and profits are growing.

For young people everywhere, finding work in today’s tough economic climate is a challenge. In a poor country facing ongoing violence and natural disasters, in a rural area with few employers, it calls for extraordinary levels of creativity, initiative and persistence. Nurturing those qualities in young people is a major objective of the IFAD-supported Rural Microenterprise Assets Programme in Colombia.

“Zibula Attudde”, Lutaaya James says without hesitation when asked what his favourite Luganda saying is. Loosely translated, it means that the person who sits and does not work will never find money. For the 57 year old resident of Kayunga, Kalangala district, commercial farming requires hard work and dedication.
“I have 72 acres of oil palm, divided amongst myself, my wife of 31 years, and my children in different proportions, based on the level of responsibility” He may be a Primary 7 drop out, traditional man, but he is very progressive and liberal when it comes to property ownership.

The acid test of a project’s success is the legacy it leaves after closure. Two years after the end of the IFAD-supported Food Security Project in the Northern Guéra Region – Phase II (PSANG II), the benefits brought by the project continue to multiply. Offering a broad package of interventions, from building schools and wells to setting up credit systems, the project also helped boost agricultural productivity and set up microenterprises. Literacy training combined with capacity-building and awareness-raising have created solid foundations on which to base other interventions and make them sustainable. Both these activities have contributed to creating greater well-being within the community, and the capacity and motivation to continue developing beyond the life of the project.

Farmers in the remote mountain villages of Lesotho rely for their survival on income from the wool and mohair of their sheep and goats. Many of them travel long distances to have their animals sheared, often risking the health of their livestock and reducing the quality of the wool and mohair. The Lesotho Government’s Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Programme (SANReMP), financed by IFAD, provides support through training and improved woolshed facilities to these farmers, enabling them to reduce the distances they travel and obtain higher-quality wool and mohair for sale.

Drought, soil erosion and HIV/AIDS have combined to have a devastating impact in Lesotho. Food security is a big problem for most of the population; families struggle to provide for themselves and many rely on food aid. In response, the Lesotho Government’s Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Programme (SANReMP), supported by IFAD, has been successfully working with families in Mafeteng, Mohale’s Hoek and Quthing districts to increase their livestock production and income-generating potential.
 

“Everyone will tell you – the biggest problem is where to sell,” says Vasile Biesu. He’s standing between rows of neatly planted vines, heavy with perfect bunches of ripe grapes. Groups of women workers are carefully cutting the bunches and others are trimming and sorting before the grapes are put in cold storage.

After years of intensive grazing and severe drought, the Syrian steppe, or Badia, has become  badly degraded. An IFAD-supported project  is working with local communities  to regenerate and manage the rangelands  for long- term productivity. Rehabilitation has restored  vegetation  and helped reduce herders’ vulnerability  to drought and the effects  of climate change. The project  has also created employment opportunities for women.