The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the
United Nations agency for rural development, and the Government of Mexico have
signed a pact to promote entrepreneurship among the country’s poor rural people
receiving social benefits, reports NaijaAgroNet.
The agreement to be
implemented under the aegis of Rural Productive Inclusion Project (RPIP), IFAD
said, will take effect in 26 municipalities in the states of Guerrero, Hidalgo
and Zacatecas and expected to benefit some 12,800 families.
The total cost of the
project is US$19.5 million, with IFAD financing covering $7.1 million. The rest
will be funded by the Government of Mexico and by the beneficiaries themselves.
NaijaAgroNet reports that
the project is designed to facilitate the access of beneficiaries of the
country's largest conditional cash transfer programme (PROSPERA) to public
programmes aimed at increasing rural productivity.
The IFAD’s Regional
Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean, Tomás Rosada, explained that basic
social assistance in the form of cash transfers allows people to live in a more
dignified way. This project aims to go beyond that.”
“It will help transform the
lives of poor rural people who are currently dependent on the State’s transfers
and make them rural entrepreneurs, capable of making a living by themselves,”
he added.
To address rural poverty
in a more effective way, the current Mexican administration has made
“productive inclusion” a key policy objective. One way of achieving this is
through the creation of synergies between conditional cash transfers and
productive development programmes, which is at the heart of the Rural
Productive Inclusion Project.
The Project will allow
local promoters to assist beneficiaries in identifying profitable productive
activities, which could vary from organic farming to small rural businesses.
These promoters will then facilitate beneficiaries’ access to technical assistance
and productive investments, so that they can increase their production and
improve the quality of their products, making them suitable for markets.
Despite efforts made in
recent decades by the Government of Mexico, large segments of the country’s
rural population still live in poverty. Family farms – subsistence farms, not
linked to markets and extremely low in productivity– represent 51 per cent of
farms in rural areas. Increasing their capacity to produce will both improve
the lives of family farmers and boost rural economies as a whole.
“By supporting rural
poor people who live on government benefits to set up agricultural and
non-agricultural rural enterprises, the project will not only improve their
lives but also, and more importantly, will do so in a sustainable way,”
explained Rosada.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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