IFAD and ICBA: a long-term partnership

The President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Dr Kanayo Nwanze, visited ICBA on Sunday 11 November 11th to discuss current and future collaboration with ICBA. Mr Fawzi Sultan, ICBA Board of Directors Chairman, also attended the meeting.

The ICBA and IFAD collaboration dates back to 2004, when IFAD supported a regional project, Saving freshwater resources with salt-tolerant forage production in marginal areas of WANA region, in which ICBA collaborated with the national agricultural research systems (NARS) in seven countries in West Asia and North Africa (WANA). The project leader, Dr Abdullah Dakheel, presented the highlights of this collaboration in the IFAD session in the fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul in 2009, Assessing water scarcity in rural and marginal areas of Arab countries: innovative solutions. Since then IFAD and ICBA has strengthened their partnerships through another regional four-year project, Adaptation to climate change in WANA marginal environments through sustainable crop and livestock diversification, in partnership with the NARS in Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Palestine, Syria and Yemen. 

ICBA’s mandate to help water-scarce countries improve the productivity, social equity and environmental sustainability of water use aligns very well with IFAD efforts, under Dr Nwanze’s guidance, ‘to ensure that agriculture is a central part of the international development agenda, and that governments recognize the concerns of smallholder farmers and other poor rural people’.  

ICBA and IFAD have agreed to explore further areas of partnerships including: Irrigation Technologies, Agricultural Policy, and Food Security. 

For more details about IFAD's presedent click here.