UN agriculture fund calls for investment in rural and Indigenous people

Rural communities are enduring the brunt of food insecurity, poverty, and hunger — and catalytic investments into this population specifically are needed to change that. That was the main message coming from world leaders and U.N. officials at the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s annual Governing Council meeting in Rome last week. Four out of 5 of the world’s extreme poor live in rural areas, yet it is often these communities of fisherfolk and farmers that produce the majority of countries’ food, according to IFAD, a specialized U.N. agency and financial institution. As it stands, U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 2 on achieving zero hunger is not on track to meet the 2030 deadline. Leaders of IFAD’s 180 member states spent the two-day event, which aims to set priorities for the agency, highlighting the criticality of investing in these “first mile communities.” “At this moment in time, I think it's very important that we continue investing in creating stable rural communities, which means global stability, and at the same time, productive agriculture also means less hunger,” IFAD President Alvaro Lario told the press. In 2023, around 2.3 billion people — the majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa — were food insecure, while over 70% of people in low-income countries couldn’t afford a healthy diet. Amid increasing conflicts, climate change, and geopolitical tensions in regions such as Gaza, Ukraine, and Myanmar, those numbers continue to rise. Farmers in Bangladesh, pastoralists in sub-Saharan Africa, and fisherfolk in the Pacific are often the first to experience extreme weather events that diminish their produce, while they’re also disproportionately vulnerable to displacement and loss of land amid conflict. “These crises not only expose our longstanding systemic issues but often aggravate them,” Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Wonie Bio told attendees. “As leaders, we can all agree that targeted investment has the power to transform livelihoods. It is our responsibility therefore to prioritize empowering rural communities, especially women and youth.” There is a $265 billion per year funding gap to achieve SDG 2, according to United Nations estimates. It’s against this backdrop that Lario urged governments, development finance institutions, multilateral development banks, public development banks, and the private sector to invest in agricultural productivity with a focus on creating jobs to grow economies. These wouldn’t be handouts, he emphasized, but investments into building resilience that are backed by assessments that show impact. According to IFAD, economic growth in agriculture is up to three times more effective at reducing poverty compared to other sectors; that rate climbs to 11 times in sub-Saharan Africa. “At the core of our business model is the recognition that small farmers are business owners, part of a global and a local economy, and small farmers need what any other businesses need: better technology, working capital, and access to markets,” Lario said. He referenced the potential for investment into better irrigation systems, roads, dams, and storage facilities that would improve agricultural production, make communities more resilient to extreme weather events, and de-risk the sector, making it more appealing to investors. Seeking partners In Sierra Leone, Bio shared that the country needed “major private-sector intervention” as the national budget cannot stretch to building better infrastructure that would de-risk the agricultural sector. “Today, we are out in the world looking for partners to be able to open up agriculture as the mainstay of our economy,” he said. Sierra Leone is one of 92 countries IFAD has invested in over the past 50 years via its low-interest loans and grants. The agency works in partnership with lower-income governments to identify areas of investment and co-design projects. IFAD’s financing, which over the years has totaled $25 billion, comes from a replenishment process in which $1.45 billion has been raised. It aims to eventually reach $2 billion to fund the 2025-2027 cycle. Lario believes it is IFAD’s role to bring the private sector and governments to the table. It hosted a session about the multisectoral initiative, the Group of 20 leading economies’ recently launched Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, as an example of this. IFAD is a member of the alliance. He also said it was IFAD’s role to ensure any programs are driven by small-scale farmers with a focus on job creation. Over 65 million young people are currently unemployed with rates “critically high” in parts of Africa. These can be higher in rural communities. Muhammad Yunus, the chief adviser of the interim Bangladesh government, told attendees that IFAD’s investments in the country, starting over 40 years ago with support for microcredit institution Grameen Bank, had improved livelihoods and built resilience. “Yet as we stand on the frontlines of climate change, we must do more and continue to prioritize investments in climate resilient agriculture, sustainable irrigation, and innovative technology to safeguard these gains,” he said in a video message to the Governing Council meeting. He cited potential solutions such as salt-tolerant crops, efficient water management systems, and community-led climate adaptation measures. Lesotho’s King Letsie III called for “strong political will to drive an increase in the share of national budgets allocated for nutrition” as well as investments that consider gender, youth, people with disabilities, and Indigenous Peoples. “The overarching purpose of these investments should be to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty,” said Letsie, who is also the African Union nutrition champion. An Indigenous focus The event also shone a spotlight on Indigenous peoples as a subset of rural communities. “This is the first time there is so much space given to Indigenous Peoples issues within the Governing Council,” Ilaria Firman, IFAD’s senior technical specialist in Indigenous peoples and tribal issues, told Devex. As well as a Governors’ Dialogue with Indigenous Peoples hosted on Day 2, IFAD also organized the biannual Indigenous Peoples Forum in the lead-up to the Governing Council. Often living in remote and rural areas, Indigenous people face relentless challenges to their food security. These can include land dispossession, conflicts, forced migration, and discriminatory laws as well as floods, storms, and droughts. As a result, almost 40% of IFAD projects focus on supporting Indigenous people in places such as the Amazon and the Andes. Food also has a very important cultural and spiritual value, said Mirna Cunningham, chairperson of the steering committee of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum at IFAD. “So when we are addressing the issue of food security, we see this as an important step to really exercise the right of food sovereignty,” she said. The 35 Indigenous leaders at the forum, which also took place in Rome, agreed on regional action plans to ensure Indigenous peoples’ participation in conversations about food security generally and finalized a list of recommendations for IFAD, governments, and Indigenous people themselves on how to better work together. These include channeling IFAD’s financial resources directly to Indigenous people, ensuring participation in IFAD strategies and programs, and ending violence that affects them. The recommendations were presented to the Governing Council on Thursday and will form part of ongoing conversations between the leaders and IFAD. “The idea is that we do not see the Forum as an isolated event. It’s a part of a whole process of continuous dialogue to really ensure that Indigenous Peoples’ voices and positions are included in whatever is done at IFAD,” Cunningham said. IFAD’s Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility already directly channels funds to relatively small projects up to $70,000 each, designed and implemented by Indigenous Peoples themselves, said Firman. “We are in the dialogue with Indigenous Peoples-led funds to see how we can come together and facilitate this more access for direct type of funding,” she added. Whether Indigenous people or other rural communities, Albert K. Barume, the newly appointed U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, told Devex, hunger and food insecurity must now have a human rights focus that centers the people who are most affected rather than looking at it through a development and charity lens, as has historically been the case. “It’s a different perspective when you’re dealing with an individual on the basis of what they are entitled to as human beings for them to live in dignity,” said Barume, who said it would be his plan for the event to “sprinkle a little bit of human rights ingredients to the debate.”