IFAD announces anti-poverty loans

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has approved loans totalling US $33.8 million to improve agricultural production and help poverty reduction in three West African countries: Guinea, Ghana and Mauritania. IFAD, a specialised agency of the United Nations with a mandate to combat hunger and rural poverty in developing countries, approved $12.5 million for Guinea for an eight-year project that aims to empower local communities, including women and youth. The intention is to help people prioritise their development needs, identify and analyse constraints to achieving them, and participate in implementing related interventions, according to an IFAD news release dated 5 September For Ghana, IFAD has approved some $11 million for a project to increase productivity, product quality and output of rural non-agricultural micro and small enterprises. The aim there is to stimulate agricultural productivity and improve incomes and living conditions of rural poor. The beneficiaries of the eight-year project are expected to be rural families living in poverty, with an emphasis on women and vulnerable households. It aims to reach out to the "entrepreneurial poor", including unemployed people who are interested in self employment but lack the skills, technologies, training and see capital to set up in business. Mauritania is to receive about $10 million for the second phase of an agricultural project to benefit about 75,000 people in a rural locality, according to IFAD. It aims to consolidate the two main achievements of the first phase: expansion of the area's agricultural development potential and more equitable land tenure arrangements. The project is intended to reduce the incidence and severity of rural poverty, improve the human development indicators of people (in terms of health, education and income, for instance), and to increase the institutional capacity of the rural population, according to IFAD. [Full details]