IFAD to redefine its role, investment

FE Report | Published: June 09, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) wants to reassess its role and level of investment in Bangladesh to scale up the progress its funded projects made in the last 10 years meant for reducing rural poverty.
The announcement came at a roundtable on the organisation's country programme evaluation in the city on Sunday, jointly organised by the IFAD and Economic Relations Division.
The UN body said more than 9.0 million households in the rural areas have benefitted from its funded projects.
These projects are helping Bangladesh to alleviate rural poverty, especially by increasing household income and assets in villages.
Some 1.2 million farmers have also adopted 47 new technologies in other portfolio projects, it added.
The IFAD evaluation, made by Independent Office of Evaluation (IOE), however, underlined pockets of unmet need in rural credit system as well as diversification of policy support for emerging entrepreneurs.
"There are still many issues on long-term sustainability and further scaling up of results, which require policy level dialogue, strategic initiatives and decisive action for carrying successes forward and sustaining benefits for the future generation," said lead evaluation specialist Miguel Torralba while presenting the country paper.
He also highlighted the IFAD priority areas of attention and future investment programmes on agriculture, rural credit, environmental management and climate change, as the role of agriculture remains critical in reducing rural poverty, employment generation and food security of the country.
The country review done for the third time since 1999 also found increase in agricultural productivity in the IFAD-supported programmes to 52 per cent from 14 per cent in 10 years till 2014.
State Minister for Finance and Planning MA Mannan attended the inaugural session of the roundtable as the chief guest, with additional secretary of Economic Relations Division (ERD) Abul Basher Mohammad Zahurul Islam in the chair.
Visiting IFAD delegation, consisting Oscar Garcia, director of IOE, and Brian Baldwin, senior operations advisor of Programme Management Department, also spoke on the occasion.
Representatives of different ministries, connected with IFAD, including agriculture, fisheries and livestocks, water resources and land, ERD and development partners attended the meeting and shared their views.
While talking to the FE, the IOE director said IFAD will launch projects with new design and new strategy, following success of the projects implemented during last 30 years.
Besides, it has planned to invest US$ 100 million in the next three years in partnership with the government and other development partners.
"We want transformation of the rural achievement to more inclusive and sustainable form, including from environmental aspect, with better and effective monitoring system."
The director, however, focused on policy reform to improve the rural economy performance from the point of crop diversification, providing financial resources, and formulating an action plan to implement the IFAD recommendations, made in the evaluation.
He also highlighted that IFAD focuses more on on-farm and off-farm income-generating activities in its future country programme for ensuring income equality through increasing productivity in the rural areas.
Hoonae Kim, IFAD director for Asia and the Pacific, also said IFAD has identified priority areas of working, driven by livelihood betterment and high agriculture productivity.
"Linking farmers with agri-business, crop diversification and value chain are planned, targeting vulnerable people of rural areas," she also told the FE.
Bangladeshis are among the top three recipients of IFAD funding in Asia and the Pacific region. Since 1979, IFAD contribution along with other partners in 30 projects is almost $1.7 billion.
Its co-financers include Asian Development Bank, Danish International Development Agency, KfW Development Bank, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, United States Agency for International Development, World Bank, World Food Programme, and the Netherlands and Spain.
Six per cent of IFAD's contribution to Bangladesh is grant, which is to gear towards research and knowledge management initiatives for a total of $3.9 million.
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