Rural Poverty Reduction Project in Prey Veng and Svay Rieng

The project operates in two of the country’s poorest provinces, which are densely populated and predominantly rural. The area is vulnerable to both drought and floods. The most important sources of farm income are rice, livestock and fisheries but farmers use traditional methods and productivity is low. Both men and women migrate to find seasonal employment elsewhere.

The project’s goal is to reduce poverty by promoting poor people’s active participation in efforts to:

• improve their livelihoods
• strengthen their capacities
• achieve sustainable farming systems and natural resource management
• create and rehabilitate infrastructure
• improve access to technology, services and markets

IFAD funding supports agricultural investments and local development, and help build stronger institutions. The project empowers poor rural people to increase food production and incomes by diversifying and intensifying production and by managing natural resources in a sustainable way. It also improves their capacity to plan and manage development, including that of infrastructure. It enables service providers to work in a participatory way that is sensitive to gender issues, carrying out development programmes that respond to poor rural people’s priorities.

Source: IFAD