IFAD in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia since 1980, IFAD’s contribution of US$248.9 million in grants and loans has supported a total of 14 programmes and projects with an estimated total overall cost of US$588 million. The organization has also provided debt relief amounting to US$28 million under the Debt Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC).

IFAD has developed a lead position in the country in the areas of small-scale irrigation development, rural finance and pastoral community development. The Participatory Small-Scale Irrigation Development Programme is helping poor rural households in high-density,  drought-prone and food-insecure districts of the highlands.

The IFAD-initiated Rural Financial Intermediation Programme (RUFIP) has expanded outreach in the delivery of financial services to nearly 2 million poor rural households. The programme established and strengthened rural savings and credit cooperatives, creating a much-needed institutional base for the transformation of the microfinance sector in the country.
  
The Pastoral Community Development (PCDP) has successfully spearheaded a community demand-driven development process. And the Agricultural Marketing Improvement Programme is working to develop and improve market linkages for small-scale farmers and their groups. It will help reduce the effects of fluctuating commodity prices on the incomes of smallholder farmers.

IFAD works with Ethiopia’s government and other development partners in the country through its membership in the United Nations Country Team, the National Platform for Sustainable Land Management, the Sector Working Group on Rural Economic Development and Food Security (part of the Development Assistance Group) and the National Steering Committee on Irrigation Development. It has built strong partnerships in the country with the African Development Bank and the World Bank.

IFAD’s strategy in Ethiopia
IFAD’s strategy in Ethiopia focuses on supporting investment programmes with the greatest potential impact on sustainable household food security and on the incomes of rural poor people, particularly small-scale farmers and herders, and women in all categories. The objectives of the strategy are to enhance the access of rural poor people to:

• natural resources such as land and water
• improved agricultural and livestock production technologies and support services
• reliable financial services

The organization’s Country Strategic Opportunities Programme /COSOP), approved in December 2008, will be updated regularly to ensure synergy with emerging corporate and governmentt priorities and strategies. IFAD will continue to support rural poverty reduction through investments in rural finance, pastoral community development, community-based integrated natural resources management and sustained agricultural development.

IFAD-supported initiatives focus on responding to the need to break the vicious cycle that links land degradation, low agricultural productivity and rural poverty. Programmes and projects financed by IFAD loans work to integrate sustainable agricultural and land management practices into farming systems.

Investment programmes funded by IFAD have shown that small-scale farmers and their rural communities are willing to contribute to and actively participate in programming and implementation as members of farmers’ research groups, water users’ associations and rural savings and credit groups or cooperatives.

Country Strategic Opportunity Programme (2008)
 

Source: IFAD