The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has called for stronger government involvement in partnerships with farmers’ organizations to accelerate rural transformation and ensure investments reach smallholder farmers.
IFAD Associate Vice-President for Country Operations Donal Brown said governments must be at the center of discussions involving development agencies and farmers’ organizations because they are key to translating investments and partnerships into lasting impact.
Brown said about 95 per cent of IFAD’s resources are channelled through governments, making their involvement critical in strengthening the role of farmers’ organizations in rural development.
“We need to convince the government that farmer organizations have a strong voice, that they’re important actors, and that the government must listen to them,” Brown said during the Farmers’ Forum (FAFO) for Eastern and Southern Africa in Nairobi on Tuesday.
He said farmers’ organizations should not be viewed as opponents by governments but as important rural institutions capable of supporting communities, cooperatives, and other grassroots establishments.
Brown also called for greater coordination among development partners as concessional resources for rural development continue to decline.
He said development agencies, governments, and farmers’ organizations should move away from implementing numerous small and disconnected initiatives and instead agree on shared priorities capable of generating greater impact.
“We need to be more integrated, we need to be working together more, and we need to look at simpler, longer-term interventions,” he said.
Brown urged stakeholders to adopt longer-term approaches to rural development, noting that meaningful transformation cannot always be achieved within the five- or 10-year periods commonly used for development projects.
He challenged governments and development partners to develop longer-term visions and ensure individual projects contribute to successive phases of rural development.
Brown said IFAD also needed to engage farmers’ organizations and other development partners earlier in the planning process to establish shared priorities before projects are designed and funded.
The Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF) called for national farmer organizations to be formally included in Country Strategic Opportunities Programmes (COSOPs), which define the roles of various players in IFAD-supported programmes at the country level.
EAFF President Elizabeth Nsimadala said farmer organizations were often not involved in national programmes or COSOPs despite representing the farmers targeted by the initiatives.
She noted that ongoing discussions were seeking to ensure farmer organizations participated in national processes and had access to information on IFAD-supported programmes to enable them to complement government efforts.
Nsimadala said farmers’ organizations were ready to work with IFAD as equal partners in implementing programmes aimed at transforming food systems.
“EAFF strategy is aligned with IFAD’s priorities on markets, rural development, and resilience, with a focus on aggregation, structured markets, policy, institutional capacity, youth, women, and climate resilience,” she said.
She noted that farmers’ organizations bring an extensive grassroots structure spanning sub-national, national, regional, and continental levels, giving them the capacity to reach millions of smallholder farmers.
Nsimadala said EAFF, which represents more than 25 million smallholder farmers, could provide an effective delivery mechanism for IFAD programmes because of its established structures and networks.
“Farmer organizations should also be involved in reviewing the performance of programmes, identifying areas requiring improvement, as this brings about stronger partnerships that would enable farmers to contribute to policy development, build the capacity of grassroots organizations, and help scale successful initiatives,” she said.
Nsimadala said farmer organizations and IFAD were also moving towards a more formalized partnership, with an action plan, specific deliverables, and regular engagements to monitor progress.
She explained that the partnership would be evaluated at the Global Farmers Forum in Rome in 2028.
The move comes as IFAD seeks to strengthen collaboration between governments, farmer organizations, and the Fund in designing and implementing programmes targeting rural communities.
Pieternel Boogaard, Managing Director of the Office of Technical Delivery at IFAD, said consultations with farmers and rural communities had informed three key priorities for the Fund’s strategy and replenishment: market access, employment, and resilience.
She explained that resilience would cover not only climate-related shocks but also other disruptions affecting rural economies, including El Niño and fertilizer supply challenges.
The Regional FAFO for Eastern and Southern Africa is being held alongside the ESA Business Planning Meeting from September 29 to October 2, bringing together farmers’ organizations, IFAD, and other stakeholders to strengthen dialogue and contribute to shaping rural development priorities in the region.
By Wangari Ndirangu
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