• The UN fund’s association with ALIDE will enhance collaboration in, and the financing of small agriculture and rural wellbeing in the region

November 15, 2023- The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)  has joined the Latin American Association of Development Financing Institutions (ALIDE) as an associate member with the aim of combining efforts to advance the agricultural development and rural wellbeing of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), with a focus on small agricultural producers.

“IFAD’s participation in ALIDE reinforces a window of opportunity to work with the development banking system in searching out innovative mechanisms to support small rural producers and their integration into the agricultural value chains.  “We, in ALIDE, will strive to promote these alliances, thereby creating vehicles for the discussion of mechanisms and instruments that will make that support possible,” the Association’s Secretary General, Edgardo Alvarez, stressed.

IFAD President,  Alvaro Lario, has pointed out that ALIDE is a strategic ally of IFAD in LAC, in seeking to raise funds from Public Development Banks, as well as to materialize alliances and joint efforts to increase investments targeting the development of small rural producers.

«No actor, on its own, would be capable of bridging the gap in financing required to transform the region’s food systems.  Alliances must be established, like the one we have entered into with ALIDE, in order to design and implement innovative financial instruments with which to invest in the rural population,” added Rossana Polastri, IFAD Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

It should be stressed that green finance is one of the priorities envisaged in the agenda for IFAD-ALIDE cooperation, oriented toward enhancing the resilience of agri-food systems in the region.

ALIDE contributed in the past to the design of IFAD’s Platform of Public Agricultural Development Banks for Green and Inclusive Food Systems, and during the Finance In Common 2023 summit, the two institutions signed a letter of intent to collaborate in, and support the formulation of strategies to fight rural poverty and allow for the implementation of joint work plans.

IFAD in LAC

IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized body of the United Nations that invests in the rural population and, by empowering these people, helps them to reduce their poverty, enhance food security, improve nutrition and strengthen their resilience.

IFAD’s present volume of investment in Latin America and the Caribbean is at its historical high in the region.  The Fund has 30 operations underway in 17 Latin American countries with financing totaling 1,800 million U.S. dollars (630 million provided directly by IFAD; 647 million supplied by governments that are recipients of IFAD loans and grants; and 508 million consisting of donor country financing).

IFAD’s projects in the region contribute to the inclusion of small farmers in the formal value chains, and to the conservation of the biodiversity and the production of nutritional food products.  The use of climatically intelligent agricultural practices has also helped to reduce vulnerability to food insecurity in these territories.