International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), is a specialized agency of the United Nations, and was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. IFAD's mission is to enable poor rural people to overcome poverty. Working with rural poor people, governments, donors, non-governmental organizations and many other partners, IFAD focuses on country-specific solutions, which can involve increasing rural poor peoples' access to financial services, markets, technology, land and other natural resources. India is one of the founding members of IFAD and has a permanent seat on its Executive Board. India is not only a leading donor among the developing countries for IFAD but also has the largest country programme of IFAD in the world. Working in close partnership with the Government of India and other donors, IFAD has been funding projects for rural development, tribal development, women's empowerment, natural resources management and rural finance.Since 1979, IFAD has financed 21 programmes involving highly concessional loan assistance of approximately US$565 million. As on October 31,2007 IFAD has 7 ongoing projects involving loan assistance of approximately US$ 200 million.
IFAD's strategy in India centres on improving rural poor people's access to economic and social resources. In all operations, IFAD emphasizes the importance of strengthening people's capacities to establish and manage their own institutions. It supports Self-Help Groups (IFAD is a pioneer for the SHG movement India), community institutions and village development associations in tribal and non-tribal areas. These and similar groups participate directly in designing development initiatives and become progressively responsible for programme and project resources and management. Empowering women and other disadvantaged groups is a strategic priority. IFAD has played an important role in developing replicable models through its projects and acted as a catalyst for far-reaching innovative change. In areas such as microfinance and women's empowerment, IFAD-funded operations have tested institutional and technical innovations that have been ultimately scaled up by the Government.
Strategic activities in India include:
Providing access to microfinance services, which are particularly effective in empowering women, Improving livelihood opportunities for tribal communities and in semi-arid tropical areas, where better water management and new technologies for agriculture help reduce poverty, Introducing development activities in the intensely populated and impoverished areas. Developing partnerships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector to reinforce community-based organizations Exploring possibilities for linkages with other donors and institutions Promoting policy change through project activities.
IFAD has developed close working relationships with other donors and agencies in India. It has a particularly strong partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) involving joint funding and supervision of projects as well as collaboration on advocacy and other initiatives. IFAD has also cofinanced programmes and projects with the Department for International Development (United Kingdom) and the World Bank. The strategic framework of IFAD also recognizes that IFAD must expand its engagement beyond the immediate impact of IFAD's projects and programmes to influence the direction and content of national and international poverty reduction processes. Thus it emphasizes building complementary partnerships and broad alliances to maximize IFAD's contribution to the international community larger poverty reduction effort.
IFAD's interventions in India also strive to reorient the mindset of development agents at all levels in government, financial institutions, NGOs and community based organizations (CBOs). A conscious attempt is made to bring a more sensitive and responsive approach to the design and implementation of development interventions and to build the capacities of the poor through establishing or strengthening their institutions.
Early Programmes
The first 5 projects approved by IFAD for India were for irrigation and command area development and all were cofinanced with the World Bank. These projects were: Bhima Command Area Development, Rajasthan Command Area Development and Settlement, Sunderban Development, Madhya Pradesh Medium Irrigation, and Uttar Pradesh Public Tubewells. Since 1987 IFAD changed its strategy in India in view of the need to tackle the issue of food security at the household level. A series of projects targeting specific communities groups were developed.The first in this line was the Orissa Tribal Development Project, which identified the tribal population of Kashipur in Orissa as the primary target group and adopted broad-based interventions in natural resource management and rural infrastructure.This was followed by the Tamil Nadu Women's Development Project, which targeted women on an exclusive basis and introduced micro-finance as the principal instrument for empowering women.It was followed by the Andhra Pradesh Tribal Development Project which aimed at fostering household food security by increasing food production and raising the incomes of tribal households. These projects have since been completed.
