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Since the coronavirus pandemic began to hit developing nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has been finding ways to help rural families, many of them poor farmers, including setting up a new fund that was launched by British actor Idris Elba on Monday.
In eastern Senegal, where a curfew and market closures mean it’s hard to sell produce or livestock, the U.N. agency is supporting cash transfers and subsidies via smartphones, and distributing seeds and fertilisers ahead of the planting season.
In India’s Odisha state, it has worked with local authorities to get watermelons transported to markets, avoiding the loss of 600 tonnes of fruit due to the COVID-19 lockdown.
And in Bangladesh, it has helped negotiate the deferral of payments on microfinance loans, while in Tunisia it’s planning to back three month of cash aid payments to 14,000 rural families who depend on daily wage labour that has dried up.
IFAD said on Monday it would put $40 million into a new fund – the COVID-19 Rural Poor Stimulus Facility – to counter the pandemic’s effects on production, market access and employment. The fund was launched by British actor and filmmaker Idris Elba.
The fund also aims to raise at least $200 million more from governments, foundations and the private sector.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke with IFAD President Gilbert F. Houngbo, who was born and raised in rural Togo, West Africa, and served as its prime minister from 2008-2012.
