IFAD projects in Yemen worth $230m

Nwanze, IFAD President

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has valued its projects in the west Asian country of Yemen to the tune of $230million, about N36.19 billion.

The United Nations’ specialised agency’s recent pledge to support agriculture and rural development in Yemen to the tune of $41million, brings the total investments in the country’s projects to $230million, as at September 2012

Of the total sum, $130 million was co-financed from domestic sources and the rest by external financiers, such as the European Union, International sDB and World Bank.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that some of the previous projects co-financed by IFAD in the Asian country include a $32.9, about N5.17billion Fisheries Investment Project in 2010, a project which benefited small-scale fishers, their associations as well as poor households that want to engage in aquaculture.

IFAD came up with the Fisheries investment project in a bid to improve the economic status of small-scale fishers through the creation of sustainable and diversified economic opportunities for poor women and men alike with special focus on the development of value chain development.

One of the numerous projects that sum IFAD’s financial commitment to N36.19billion includes the Economic Opportunities Programme early in 2010, which seek to create economic opportunities for the rural poor while working with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to significantly reduce poverty.

The economic opportunities programme, NaijaAgroNet further gathered also assisted landless households to develop the value chains for coffee, honey and horticulture products, being the three high-value agriculture commodities for some of the selected areas for the project.

IFAD in collaboration with the Government of Yemen introduced a private-sector-led approach to development operations with the economic opportunities programme.

The programme also established a private-public partnership to effectively, efficiently and transparently manage development resources and create synergies, whilst women constituted the key target group for the micro-business.

NaijaAgroNet equally gathered that projects by IFAD in Yemen have supported more than 1.2 million poor women and men alike, helping them build resilience to shocks and conflict, and at the same time improving their household food security and incomes.

However, the new pledge by IFAD will also allow the scaling up of successful investments to cater for additional communities and introduce innovations with the IFAD supported country programmes.

The investments according to IFAD are expected to stimulate rural economic growth and job creation for additional one million poor women and men in the rural areas.

Yemen was one of the first countries to receive financing from the UN specialized agency at the early period of its establishment.

IFAD as an international financial institution created in 1977 as a result of the outcome of the 1974 World Food Conference with the aim of financing agricultural development projects targeted at food production in developing countries, has since inception being working towards the eradication of poverty and food insecurity in developing nations of the world.

Yinka Awosanya

... Linking agrobiz, people & technology