Visit of Fawzi H Al-Sultan
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), President,
New Delhi, 21 November 2000

The UN Resident Coordinator, Dr. Brenda Gael McSweeney, welcomed the IFAD President and briefed him on the UNDAF process in India. She thanked IFAD for its support and contribution to the formulation of the UNDAF-India document and invited the Fund to join the UNDAF Retreat to be held on 23-24 January 2001. She pointed out that as the UN Family moved towards the implementation and operationlisation of UNDAF there was a need to seriously consider joint / parallel programming. IFAD with its strong focus on women and governance was a natural partner in view of the UNDAF goals set by the Government for the UN Family, promoting gender equality and strengthening decentralisation. IFAD was in the process of signing a tripartite MOU with WFP and UNDP. Under the UNDAF, an MOU with the UN Family was also mooted.

IFAD President, Mr. Fawzi Al-Sultan briefed the UN Country Team on the recently concluded IFAD consultation which is held with donors once every three years. The key priority for IFAD was partnerships.

Highlighting the importance of UN System coordination and UNDAF, the IFAD President emphasised the need of working together to achieve the global goal of reducing world poverty by half by 2015, to maximise the impact of scarce resources, to recongnise that UN Agencies’ priorities are the same and that there was a need to work together.

Mr. Al-Sultan also briefed the group on the IFAD Report to be launched shortly — The Rural Poverty Report — with a view to focus the attention of donors on the rural poor whose main means of livelihood was from the agriculture sector. This was particularly significant in view of declining resources for the agriculture sector.

IFAD’s focus on women had been consistent in its programme and priorities and it continued to emphasis the importance of a participatory approach. Micro-finance was important in IFAD’s programmes because it served as a means of women’s empowerment.

Other IFAD priorities included creating a coalition of the poor and involving the better off as stakeholders and partners. In the age of globalisation it was important to invest in the poorest, in the dry lands and marginalised areas, as their role in providing environmental services needed to be recognised. It was also important to highlight the role of indigenous watershed technologies.

Dr. N. C. Saxena, Secretary, Planning Commission joined the meeting and congratulated IFAD on its work in India. He noted that the Planning Commission and IFAD had common objectives — poverty alleviation with a focus on the rural poor and the empowerment of women.

Touching on the mid-term review of the Ninth Pan recently concluded by the Planning Commission, Dr. Saxena said though economic growth targets had been met by and large, the rate of decline in poverty had not been upto expectation. The review attributes this to the poverty alleviation schemes not working very well, and lower than expected peoples’ participation.

A shift in the agriculture policy was also needed — even with food surplus in the country today hunger persists. There was an urgent need to improve the infrastructure — irrigation and roads.

There were distinct regions of poverty in the country — the north where not enough land was available and in central India where land was available but was not highly fertile. While in the former there was a need to prevent conflict in society between those who had land and those who did not, in the latter there was a need to empower people with knowledge. Also in the tribal regions in central India, the problems relate to Government Policy.

Dr. Saxena saw a role for IFAD to work closely with other donors and with the Planning Commission to influence Government policy by linking micro concerns with policies at the macro level.

IFAD Project Directors made presentations on the following projects in India:

1. Madhya Pradesh Tribal Development Programme in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
2. Maharashtra Rural Credit Project in 12 districts of the state.
3. North East Resource Management Project.