IFAD pledges $41m for agriculture and rural development in Yemen

More than 280 participants from 27 donor countries, and 36 regional development and international financial institutions as well as observers from NGOs and the private sector attended the meeting held in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on 4-5 September.

The Program, developed by Yemen's Government of National Reconciliation with support from the European Union (EU), Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), World Bank (WB) and United Nations organisations, including the International Fund for Agricultural Development, aims to enable the country to successfully implement its political transition and accelerate economic recovery.

IFAD pledged $41m to develop new projects in the country during the transition period. The pledge includes $31m from IFAD's core resources as well as $10m from the Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP), a new financing instrument established by the Fund to scale up and integrate climate change adaptation in smallholder development projects.

Since 1979, IFAD has worked in Yemen to enhance rural economic growth by supporting national programmes in the agriculture and fisheries sectors and focused on enhancing food security, women's empowerment and community development.

The on-going IFAD-financed projects in Yemen are worth $230m, of which $130m is co-financed from domestic sources and the rest by external financiers, such as the EU, IsDB and WB. IFADs work in the rural areas of the country is supporting over 1.2 million poor women and men to build their resilience to shocks and conflict, while at the same time, improving their household food security and incomes.

The new resources pledged by IFAD will allow the scaling up of successful investments to cover additional communities and governorates and introduce innovations within the IFAD supported country programme. These investments are expected to stimulate rural economic growth and create jobs for an additional one million poor women and men in the rural areas of Yemen.

The IFAD supported country programme has developed strong implementation capacity through decentralised project management units at governorate level as well as the Economic Opportunities Fund (EOF), a public-private partnership established in Yemen in 2010. Backed by IFAD and the EU, the Economic Opportunities Programme is financed by IsDB.

The EOF's mission is to create sustainable economic opportunities for poor women and men and it will be one of the main implementing agencies for medium term priorities of the Transitional Program.

The EOF is currently working with the Government and private sector partners to develop coffee, honey, horticulture and fisheries value chains, and will subsequently address rural non-farm value chains such as natural stone and handloom textiles.