Advancing Agriculture in Africa:
IFAD perspectives from
Eastern and Southern Africa
Ides DeWillebois
Director
Eastern and Southern Africa Division
IFAD

ODA, along with public investment by developing
countries, to agriculture and rural development in
developing countries, has declined
Year Africa Asia Latin
America
1980 6.4% 15% 8%
2002 4.5% 5.6% 2.5%
Source: World Development Report, 2008

The decline in ODA has occurred despite the facts:
Fact # 1: Most of the poor are rural (70% on average in developing
countries)
Moz ambiq
Cambodia
Hondur as
Sr i Lank a
Maur itani
T anz ania
Nic ar agu
Mongolia
Vietnam
Ethiopia
G eor gia
Bur k ina
Uganda
G ambia
Z ambia
Malawi
Yemen
G hana
Ky gy z
Nepal
Niger
Pov er ty Rates
Rural 51 46 68 50 71 66 80 61 47 34 67 40 57 33 70 10 51 69 45 44 27
Urban 17 16 25 24 62 52 56 48 37 27 55 21 26 39 49 12 57 31 31 23 15
Difference 34 30 43 26 9 14 24 13 10 7 12 19 31 -6 21 -2 -6 38 14 21 12

Fact #3: Donor projects in agriculture perform as well as donor projects
in non-agriculture
• Close to 80% of IFAD projects, at completion, are rated as
“satisfactory”
• This compares, favourably, with the World Bank which
shows 80-85% success rates in terms of economic return
• There are high payoffs to investment in agriculture,
especially, in research and development (R&D) and roads

IFAD is a comparatively large contributor to ODA (1998-2005) to Africa
in Agriculture and Rural Development
Agriculture Rural Development Total
($ millions) ($ millions) ($ millions)
Bilateral France 564.7 184.0 748.7
Germany 461.9 197.6 659.5
Netherlands 277.5 149.8 427.3
United Kingdom 251.1 160.4 411.5
United States 978.8 154.8 1133.5
Multilateral AfDF 1023.0 493.0 1516.0
EC 651.5 486.2 1137.8
IFAD 726.7 675.7 1402.4
IDA 1224.8 462.9 1707.7

IFAD’s hierarchy of development objectives
Overarching goal – Poor rural women and men in developing countries are empowered to achieve higher
incomes and improved food security (aimed at MDG1)
Strategic objective – Poor rural men and women in developing countries have Principles of
better access to, and have developed the skills and organization to take advantage engagement
of:
• Selectivity and focus
• Natural resources (land and water)
on rural development
• Improved agricultural technologies and production services
• Targeting poor and
• A broad range of financial services
vulnerable people
• Transparent, competitive agricultural input + produce markets
• Empowering poor
• Opportunities for rural enterprise development, employment
rural people and their
• Local, national policy and programming processes
organizations,
Operational outcomes – In the above six areas:
especially youth and
• Increased incomes and enhanced food security for
women
the immediate target group of IFAD-supported projects
• Innovation, learning
• Strengthened national capacities for agricultural rural
poverty reduction and up scaling
including knowledge
Outputs – In the above six areas: management
• Country programmes – innovative projects, multi-stakeholder programmes,
• Partnerships with
local and national level experience-based policy dialogue
governments
• Regional and global programmes – projects to build knowledge, policy (alignment), donors
dialogue based on field level experience and others
(harmonisation)
• Knowledge products
• Sustainability of
project impact
Instruments – in two ways:
• Loans (including ‘zero-cost’ loans under DSF) to governments
• Grants to not for profit organisations

IFAD in Eastern and Southern Africa
• 46 ongoing loans worth USD 756 million and 33 ongoing
grants worth 16.5 million:
• Grants
– Country and (small and large) regional grants
– NGOs, governments and UN agencies
– Strengthening farmers organisations, improved agricultural services and
innovations, access to rural financial services, input and output markets
• Loans
– Sole financed (~40%) and co-financed (~60%)project and programmes
– Governments, “aligned” (e.g. Medium Term Investment Frameworks) and
“harmonized” (e.g. Sector-Wide Approaches)
– Area-based, commodity-based, enterprise-based, financial service-based
projects and programmes