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The heads of the three Rome-based food and agriculture agencies of the United Nations – the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Food Programme (WFP) – visited Ghana’s food insecure northern region last week to find better ways to work together to fight hunger and poverty in the country.

Thanks to an IFAD-supported programme in north-east Ghana, women’s groups are still building their small-scale ruminant-breeding businesses, feeding their families and sending their children to school 13 years on. Their success inspired other women in the region to follow suit. The programme also had a number of spin-off successes, including the development of three improved varieties of cassava, the nation’s staple crop, which led to a nationwide programme for roots and tubers.

With poor soils, erratic rainfall and one of the highest population densities, Ghana's Upper East Region is the country's most impoverished area. In 1987, 97% of residents in the area lived below the poverty line; frequent droughts and high food insecurity forced many men to migrate south seeking work as seasonal labourers. One clear solution, to achieve greater food security and allow farmers to earn a living from their land during the dry season was to use low-lying lands as reservoirs by building dykes and dams.

"Have you ever seen a fisherman with AIDS before? It's not real. It never happens here. At best, even when it does, the salt in the sea is enough to kill the virus" says a young fisherman in the Chorkor area of Ghana's capital, Accra. He is not alone in his view.
Members of the Youngsters Peer Education Project (YPEP) - a non-governmental organization working with UNICEF to educate young people about HIV/AIDS - spoke to many young fishermen and found they shared the same beliefs.

A CIDA-supported project is strengthening the capacity of local governments to manage water and sanitation resources. For the first time ever in the northern regions, district governments are actively working to involve women in decision making.

When 21-year-old Olloriak Sawade, an international development student at the University of Guelph in Ontario, first signed up for an overseas program, she wasn't sure how it was going to turn out.

Lucy Mansa is a cocoa farmer who makes her living by growing and selling cocoa beans. She lives in a small village in Ghana called Fenaso Domeabra.

This quality film illustrates the OPEC Fund's achievements during the past 25 years by showing the impact of its work in needy communities around the globe. Some 22 projects are featured in Albania, Bangladesh, Ghana, Guatamala, Honduras, Mauritania, Senegal, the Sudan, Vietnam and Yemen. The film also visits the Fund's headquarters in Vienna, Austria, where senior officials talk about the origins, philosophy and aims of the Institution.

The film deals with problems and solutions in areas such as education, health care, water supply, agriculture, road construction, energy, environment, HIV/AIDS and emergency aid. But, while highlighting success stories in the fight against poverty, Sowing the Seeds of Hope shows that much remains to be done "to turn the dreams of today into the reality of tomorrow".