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Rural poverty focus of IFAD president's visit to India

05 dicembre 2017 | 14.52
LETTURA: 2 minuti

Rural poverty focus of IFAD president's visit to India

The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development's president Gilbert F. Houngbo was due to arrive in India on Monday for a trip aimed at strengthening IFAD's cooperation with India, boosting small farmer incomes and alleviating rural poverty.

“India and IFAD will continue to work together to amplify our efforts to create food systems that are inclusive of poor rural people and societies where the benefits of economic growth reach all levels,” Houngbo said prior to his visit.

Despite India having achieved middle-income status, reducing poverty continues to be a key development priority for the country and one of the key goals set at an historic UN 2015 summit to end all forms of poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change.

Close to 70 percent of India’s poor live in rural areas and derive their main source of income from agriculture and related sectors, IFAD said. The growth and stability of the farm sector is critical to rural poverty reduction and the government aims to double farmers' incomes by 2022.

“India and IFAD will continue to work together to amplify our efforts to create food systems that are inclusive of poor rural people, and societies where the benefits of economic growth reach all levels,” Houngbo said.

Key to this objective are innovations designed to help small farmers increase their production and earnings "in a lasting and sustainable way," Houngbo added.

"We must also look at innovative ways of connecting smallholders to markets,” he said.

During his visit, Houngbo will meet India's finance minister Arun Jaitley to discuss his country and IFAD’s common goals. This year, the government will funnel additional spending to infrastructure and rural India,” Indian media cited Jaitley as saying last week.

Houngbo is also slated to meet India' agriculture and farmers welfare minister Mohan Singh and other top government officials during his trip, IFAD said.

India, a contributor to IFAD, is also the Rome-based agency's largest borrower to date, with around one billion dollars of loans that are financing 28 rural development projects and benefitting an estimated 4.6 million households, the agency said.

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