FAO: REDUCE RURAL POVERTY - ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES

Despite progress made in reducing poverty, over 2 billion people still live in poverty, 736 million of which live in extreme poverty. A large majority live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. These communities often lack income to buy food and access to resources, services, technologies, markets and economic opportunities to exit poverty. FAO supports governments in reducing rural poverty through inclusive rural transformation with an emphasis on addressing the needs of rural women and youth. A multi-dimensional approach is needed including increasing agricultural productivity, economic diversification, social protection and creating jobs.

ACHIEVEMENTS...

Social protection and economic inclusion in agriculture...

A key step towards rural poverty reduction is ensuring that family farmers who live in poverty are given access to adequate social protection. Social Protection allow rural communities to achieve food security, manage the risks found in agricultural activities and invest in productive activities. In this way, social protection facilitates economic inclusion, particularly that of the extreme poor and vulnerable. Guided by the FAO Social Protection Framework, launched in 2015, countries are provided with evidencebased policy support to the scale-up of inclusive social protection systems that help the rural poor invest in their future and cope with risks and shocks caused by climate change and crises. One example includes FAO’s support to the national social protection programme in Senegal where synergies between with productive interventions at scale were created to sustain the economic gains for social assistance.


Generating jobs for youth to change the future of migration...

FAO also plays an active role in the global debates on migration, addressing the adverse drivers of migration and its impacts on food security, agriculture and rural development. FAO helps generate alternatives to migration for youth by supporting the development of rural youth employment. Since 2017, FAO has supported approximately 50 programs on rural youth employment in countries including Nigeria, Uganda, Senegal and Guatemala. The 2018 FAO Migration Framework guides the Organization in carrying out its work on migration at global, regional and country levels. Through this framework, FAO supports Member States in addressing both the rural dimensions of migration as well as its implications for rural populations, including the future of agriculture and food systems. Addressing child labor Globally, in recent years, the number of boys and girls trapped in child labour
in agriculture has increased from 59 percent to 70 percent, which represent 108 million boys and girls. To tackle this challenge, FAO collaborates with a wide range of organizations at global level, including the members of the International Partnership for Cooperation on Child Labour in Agriculture (ILO, IFAD, IUF and IFPRI/CGIAR). FAO works to enhance the decisive role of national agricultural stakeholders, from extension officers to agriculture-related ministries and producers’ organizations, to end child labour and achieve SDG target 8.7 in different countries.

Empowering the rural poor and strengthening their organizations and access to resources...

FAO promotes access to resources, services and markets and enhances their political influence through the empowerment of people living in rural poverty and by strengthening rural organizations. The Forest & Farm Facility hosted by FAO has strengthened nearly 1000 producer organizations at regional, national and local levels, resulting in changes in policies and regulations to assist producers. The Dimitra Project in 2018 highlighted issues such as gender and nutrition in Niger and 120 Dimitra clubs strengthened their capacities in participatory communication and leadership. South-South and Triangular Cooperation FAO promotes the Knowledge Exchange Platforms (KEPs) on rural poverty reduction to improve countries’ capacities to design and implement solutions to reduce rural poverty and hunger. Since 2016, the KEPs have forged collaboration between China, Ghana, Kenya and Senegal.


Empowering women...

FAO has accelerated gender equality and rural women’s economic empowerment by providing Member states with policy advice, technical support, capacity development and knowledge generation. In 2018, FAO supported the development of a Sub-regional Outlook on Gender and Agrifood Systems report for the Economic Community of West African States. In partnership with IFAD, WFP and UN Women, FAO implemented the Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme (RWEE) in seven countries. The programme offered rural women access to financial services, business development services, trainings on agricultural technologies and nutrition advice. It also gave rural women the capacity to influence policy processes at a national and regional level. In India FAO is partnering with the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, one of the largest poverty alleviation programmes in the world. The project works with women’s self-help groups and women federations over a period of eight to ten years and promotes inclusive business approaches and integration of nutrition into sustainable agriculture activities

Analyzing and developing multisectoral policies towards reducing rural poverty...

FAO aims towards building broader capacity to analyze, design and implement comprehensive, gender equitable, multi-sectoral rural poverty reduction policies, strategies and programmes. In 2018, the Economic and Social Development Department and the Strategic Programme on Reducing Rural
Poverty team produced a report on Ending Extreme Poverty in Rural Areas: Sustaining livelihoods to leave no one behind. The report discusses challenges faced by rural communities as well as key elements and strategies to end extreme poverty. FAO launched a regional Alliance of experts for the Elimination of Rural Poverty in Latin America with IFAD which has produced the first FAO Regional Flagship on Rural Poverty and promoted dialogue between policy makers and other stakeholders to highlight issues related to rural poverty. A major challenge in policy development is the lack of available data on gender and poverty in rural areas. To fill this gap, FAO, together with IFAD and the World Bank, is developing a Rural Livelihoods Information System (RuLiS) to provide policy-makers with evidence to more effectively formulate differentiated policies and monitor indicators related to SDG1 and SDG2.

Climate Change and Poverty...

FAO supports countries to end poverty and address climate change by promoting pro-poor and climateinformed development policies. In Viet Nam and Bangladesh, FAO generated new evidence on the linkages of disaster-climate change-poverty and provided support to government institutions in policy coherence and programmatic approaches between poverty reduction, agriculture, the environment and risk management and disaster response. The Strategic Programme on Reducing Rural Poverty has also developed a strategic approach and series of recommendations to improve the nexus of climate-poverty responses. This initiative includes country level testing, identification of best practices, and development of guidance for country and local level implementation.

CHALLENGES...

Ending poverty and hunger are the central challenges of the 2030 Agenda and cannot be addressed separately. Given its expertise in agriculture, natural resource management, climate change and rural development, FAO must step up efforts to confront rural poverty and hunger. This requires collaboration with key development partners and cross-sectoral coordination beyond our traditional ministries of agriculture, fisheries and forestry.