IFAD Seeks Increased Investment in Rural Devt

Against the backdrop of escalating global instability, government and development leaders have made an urgent call for greater investment in rural development to address hunger and poverty caused by conflict and climate change.

“We all agree on the severity of the situation and that there is no time to lose. We need to scale up our actions and leverage our resources in order to eliminate poverty and hunger,” President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Gilbert Houngbo, said.

He said this at the final day of the Fund’s 43rd Governing Council meeting.

The incidents of armed conflict in Africa alone increased by 36 per cent between 2018 to 2019, contributing to an increase in hunger and poverty.

“While humanitarian responses are well suited to address the symptoms of conflicts or natural disasters, it is rural development that is devised to address long-term issues and is better suited to build resilience, and foster peace and stability,” IFAD Associate VicePresident, Donal Brown said.

According to a statement from IFAD, there are evidence that welltargeted rural development interventions could accelerate recovery from the devastating effects of conflicts and yield solid peace dividends.

“IFAD was the first multilateral institution that came to Rwanda after the genocide, when nobody else wanted to be there,” the President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Agnes Matilda Kalibata said.

Kalibata was recently named Special Envoy of the Food Systems Summit 2021.

She added that IFAD was among the first, “to invest in capacity for the government, so that it could strengthen its agricultural sector.” Rwanda has achieved extraordinary results since its 1994 genocide. Thanks to strong economic growth, poverty and hunger have dramatically declined.

The Director-General International Development Policy, German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, Dominik Ziller, said development could also play a role in preventing conflict.

“If people don’t have opportunities in their countries there is a risk that criminality rises, terrorism increases and the warlords will find more supporters,” Ziller added.

In short, he added, “there is a risk of destabilization and more fragile states.”

The Minister for Agriculture and Irrigation of the Federal Republic of Somalia, Said Hussein Iid, said his government was focusing on incomegenerating opportunities for young people, “to prevent youth going into terrorism, piracy or going overseas.”

“There can be no development without lasting peace,” said Josefa Sacko, Ambassador and Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, speaking on behalf of the African Union Commission.

“Conflict stops agricultural production and stops millions of people lifting themselves out of poverty,” she said.

This is compounded by natural disasters, like the current scourge of locusts destroying crops in East Africa and a changing climate that, “threatens African food systems and is the driving force behind migration and conflict.”

Climate change could push more than 100 million people into poverty by 2030, with half of this poverty increase due to climate effects on agriculture.

And it is exacerbating existing conflicts and has the potential to cause new conflicts around the world as resources become more limited. In 2018, disasters displaced 17.2 million people from their homes, 90 per cent fled weather and climate-related hazards.