Report of the 2008 global meeting - IFAD

poor rural people, such as support to the organization of marketing systems, provision of
information and support to production groups in order to produce more economically.
“I think that policy dialogue is important and should be reinforced and must be
assisted. But I find that there are a lot of resources that are being put on policy
dialogue. This is all right but should not be at the cost of other programmes that are
of more immediate and of more practical benefit to the farmers.”
Mr L. N. Kariuki, National Chairman, KENFAP, Kenya
The group also discussed land issues, and how policy processes develop in the region at
various levels.
IFAD-FO partnerships in Asia and the Pacific
The working group opened with a presentation 10 of the underlying reasons for IFAD to
further engage in partnership with FOs, in light of the experience to date. First, the
strengthening of IFAD-FO partnerships has enabled the Asia and the Pacific Division of
IFAD to more effectively design and implement its projects and programmes. Second,
the involvement of FOs in IFAD activities is having a tangible and positive impact on
agricultural institutions. A third reason is the role FOs can play in relation to the
sustainability of IFAD projects, which continues to be an issue in spite of the efforts
made by the Fund together with governments and FOs. Lastly, engagement with FOs is
important in order for FOs to be able to respond in an organized manner to the new
risks and challenges posed by climate change.
The presentation was followed by an introduction to the regional mid-term
collaboration programme the Division has been working on since 2006 for the capacitybuilding
of FOs in Asia, and that will be submitted for approval to the Executive Board
of IFAD in April 2008. It was highlighted that the programme responds to the request of
many Asian governments to work again in partnership with IFAD, while
it also responds to a renewed need for pluralism in this engagement,
which may be achieved only with the active participation of FOs. To this
aim, the programme foresees a very strong component of capacitybuilding
for FOs and their members.
An overview of the progress made in 2006-2008 in the partnership
between the regional division and FOs was then presented, 11 with
examples from the definition of country strategies (COSOPs), the design
and implementation of projects and programmes, and direct financing
to FOs (grants). The last section of the presentation presented some of Zainal Arifin Fuat, SPI, Indonesia and
Sarath Fernando, MONLAR, Sri Lanka
the difficulties IFAD encountered in its partnership with FOs, in
particular: i) competition among the farmers’ networks and platforms IFAD engages
with, which has proved a challenge for inclusive consultations; ii) understanding the
limits of IFAD and FOs in terms of their mandates and policies in the design of IFAD
country programmes; iii) the need to raise dialogue at a much higher level that relates to
daily needs and activities of FOs when discussing IFAD country strategies (the “shopping
list” problem); iv) need for capacity-building of FOs before their engagement in the
implementation of IFAD programmes; v) lack of IFAD’s full knowledge of FOs in the
10 The presentation was made by Mr T. Elhaut, Director of the Asia and the Pacific Division, IFAD.
11 The presentation was made by Mr Sana Jatta, Country Programme Manager and divisional focal point on
Farmers’ Organisations.
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