Panama

A new project backed by the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) aims to improve the lives of some 10,000 men and women in rural Panama ? the majority of them small farmers, landless laborers, unemployed youth and female heads of household. IFAD is providing a USD 4.2 million loan towards the six-year, USD 12.3 million project, under an agreement signed July 15 in Rome by the agency?s President Lennart Bage and the Ambassador of Panama to IFAD, Eudoro JaéEsquivel. The project will focus on promoting new income-generating activities and identifying new national and international markets to sell produce. (UN News Service)