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ANNUAL REPORT 2011 - IFAD

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Environment and Climate Division in <strong>2011</strong>, adding<br />

climate and environment specialists in all regions.<br />

We stepped up our advocacy at the 17th<br />

Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United<br />

Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change<br />

in Durban, South Africa. <strong>IFAD</strong> President Kanayo F.<br />

Nwanze delivered a keynote address to open the<br />

Agriculture and Rural Development Day <strong>2011</strong> that<br />

was held at the same time. We also partnered with<br />

the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural<br />

Unions to advocate for inclusion of agriculture in the<br />

climate negotiations.<br />

During <strong>2011</strong>, we designed the Adaptation for<br />

Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP), a<br />

multi-donor grant cofinancing programme to<br />

channel more climate finance to poor rural people<br />

by integrating it into <strong>IFAD</strong>-supported investments. It<br />

will also construct a knowledge base of adaptation<br />

approaches that can be shared and scaled up. The<br />

programme has the following core goals:<br />

• reduce yield losses associated with climate<br />

impact through improved land management<br />

and climate-resilient agricultural practices<br />

• increase the availability of water and its efficient<br />

use for smallholder agricultural production and<br />

processing<br />

• build institutional capacity to adapt to climate<br />

change at local and national level<br />

• strengthen disaster risk reduction at community<br />

level<br />

• promote technologies to reduce the vulnerability<br />

of rural livelihoods and increase efficiency along<br />

agricultural value chains<br />

• develop climate-resilient rural infrastructure.<br />

Supporting biodiversity<br />

Enabling people to sustainably manage their<br />

ecological patrimony improves their income,<br />

nutrition, self-esteem and response to<br />

environmental challenges. <strong>IFAD</strong> has funded work<br />

related to biodiversity through 39 loans totalling<br />

over US$500 million and 44 grants with a total value<br />

of US$42 million. We fully support the United<br />

Nations Decade on Biodiversity, which was declared<br />

in <strong>2011</strong> and will run until 2020, with the goal of<br />

significantly reducing biodiversity loss.<br />

Through a grant of US$1.5 million approved in<br />

<strong>2011</strong>, <strong>IFAD</strong> is supporting a new mechanism to<br />

prioritize conservation and use of biodiversity for<br />

FACING CHALLENGES – SHARING SOLUTIONS<br />

poverty reduction − the Benefit-sharing Fund of the<br />

International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for<br />

Food and Agriculture. We also share knowledge with<br />

other organizations working on biodiversity,<br />

including Bioversity International, Oxfam Italia,<br />

Oxfam Novib and the United Nations Convention<br />

on Biological Diversity itself.<br />

During the year, our Executive Board approved a<br />

project in Bangladesh that exemplifies how<br />

<strong>IFAD</strong> focuses on improving access to fishery<br />

resources and conservation of biodiversity (see<br />

CD-ROM). In Kyrgyzstan, an ongoing forestry and<br />

carbon trading initiative is helping to improve<br />

biodiversity; for example, by increasing access to<br />

non-timber forest products.<br />

Food and nutrition security<br />

During <strong>2011</strong>, <strong>IFAD</strong> finalized its Strategic Framework<br />

<strong>2011</strong>-2015 (see page 5), whose overarching goal is<br />

“Enabling poor rural people to improve their food<br />

security and nutrition, raise their incomes and<br />

strengthen their resilience”. In our strategic vision<br />

for the Ninth Replenishment period (2013-2015),<br />

we committed ourselves to acting as a “global<br />

catalyst of investments to enable smallholder<br />

agriculture to drive progress towards food security<br />

and improved nutrition, poverty reduction and<br />

more resilient ecosystems”.<br />

Poor rural people confront a dynamic<br />

environment with new risks and threats, but also new<br />

opportunities. Environmental degradation, growing<br />

resource scarcities, volatile markets and food price<br />

spikes all put great pressure on the livelihoods and<br />

food and nutrition security of smallholders and poor<br />

rural women and men. At the same time, growing<br />

demand for food and other agricultural products and<br />

services, coupled with the transformation of<br />

agricultural markets, presents major opportunities for<br />

smallholders. But the key is to ensure that they have<br />

the assets, services, capabilities and institutional<br />

environment to produce more, more sustainably,<br />

with greater resilience to environmental and climatic<br />

changes, and with more effective integration into<br />

vibrant markets.<br />

<strong>IFAD</strong> projected this message at several important<br />

global initiatives concerning food and nutrition<br />

security during <strong>2011</strong>. Together with partner<br />

international organizations, we produced a report to<br />

the G20 analysing the implications of food price<br />

11

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