IFAD in Pakistan

Since 1978 IFAD has supported 22 programmes and projects in Pakistan with investments totalling US$422.6 million. The total cost of the organization’s programme in Pakistan is US$2.08 billion. Five programmes and projects are ongoing. Through its country programme IFAD provides loans and technical assistance grants, and it supports policy dialogue, knowledge management and partnerships.

IFAD-funded programmes and projects work to improve the livelihoods and productivity of poor rural people. Operations reach the most disadvantaged communities, particularly communities in remote and marginalized areas across the country, where infrastructure and services are limited, access to inputs and markets is uncertain and institutional capabilities are often inadequate.

IFAD works as a partner with the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) to implement microfinance projects and to support communities that were struck by a devastating earthquake in 2005.

Other key IFAD partners in the country include civil society organizations, particularly NGOs, other non-profit organizations and community-based organizations. Many new initiatives, particularly in the dissemination of agricultural technologies and the supply of inputs, involve the private sector.

IFAD’s strategy in Pakistan has the aim of combating rural poverty through an emphasis on rural development. The strategy focuses on:

• alleviating poverty in vulnerable and remote areas
• achieving community participation
• identifying opportunities for innovation
• structuring institutional arrangements that capitalize on partnerships between public and private sectors

A key part of the strategy is a focus on skill enhancement, vocational training and access to financial services, in order to provide rural people with wider opportunities and promote  their linkages and integration with markets and the private sector.

As outlined in the country strategic opportunities programme (COSOP) for Pakistan, approved in April 2009, future IFAD operations will include a focus on:

• improving the balance between agricultural and non-farm investment
• supporting capacity development in decentralized entities and other bodies working at the local level
• continuing support to the government’s engagement in disadvantaged, remote and conflict-affected areas, with a more differentiated approach
• strengthening IFAD’s capacity to promote innovation
• adjusting the organization’s operating model according to the size and specific characteristics of the Pakistan programme

The recent COSOP calls for a new emphasis on areas such as high-value crops, livestock development, market access and the effects of climate change. The main objectives of the country programme are to:

• enhance the access of poor rural women and men to productive assets, skills, services and improved technologies, with particular emphasis on enhancing productivity – through pilot schemes for land distribution, new microfinance products and market access initiatives
• strengthen the capacity of poor rural people to engage in and benefit from local development processes – supporting government line agencies to improve the participatory approach, working with potential partners and promoting institutional innovation at the grass-roots level

IFAD operations in Pakistan target areas with a high incidence of poverty or with specific development problems resulting from their geographic location, including mountainous regions, the coastal belt and low-rainfall areas. Within those areas, the target groups for programmes and projects include:

• small farmers with limited land and livestock
• landless farmers, including small-scale livestock herders and fishers who depend on a combination of on-farm and off-farm wage employment
• households headed by women who have little access to resources, services and assets of their own

Source: IFAD