We can reap the benefits of investing in rural communities

A family searches for discarded wheat left by the combine harvester as it works in a field in Kenya. Trevor Snapp / Bloomberg

This year is a crucial one for global development. It is the year in which a new development agenda and sustainable goals will be agreed by the international community.

But I would like to talk about another community – the rural one. The rural world was long forgotten by some, and it is a world that has often been starved of resources, opportunities and hope. It is also the place where three-quarters of the poor and hungry live.

For millions of rural people, the new agenda is the same as the old agenda: survival.

And yet we rely on the rural world for our food, water and other resources. Without it, urban life would be impossible. We also know that the main employer in rural areas is agriculture, and that means small farms. Smallholder farmers produce 80 per cent of the developing world’s food, but ironically it is often smallholder families who go hungry. Around half of all undernourished children live on farms.

If this seems like a bleak picture, it is not. In fact, at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad), we have never been more optimistic about smallholder farmers and other rural people. They are not the problem, but the solution. They are key to global food security – not only today, but tomorrow.

At Ifad, we have seen time and time again that with the right investments – the links to markets, the infrastructure, the appropriate technologies – smallholders can produce more and produce it better, improve their incomes and food security and start thriving businesses.

And we are not alone in believing this. Ifad partners with other development institutions, the private sector, research centres and our 176 member states to direct investment to rural areas. Since 1978, we have provided more than $16.3 billion, about Dh60bn, in grants and low-interest loans to projects that have reached about 438 million people. Ifad is an international financial institution and a specialised United Nations agency.

The UAE can play a major role in supporting rural development and bringing the benefits of sustainable development not only to rural people, but to the urban people who rely on them. The UAE was an early and active supporter of Ifad.

In 2013, the country ranked as the most generous provider of foreign aid in the world. In 2012, the country allocated the majority of its official development assistance – nearly 87 per cent – to development projects, such as agriculture, infrastructure, climate change mitigation and water and sanitation ventures.

But when we look at the international community as a whole, the volume of aid has waxed and waned over the years. Rural areas usually got no more than a trickle. This was neither fair nor logical, because we know that GDP growth due to agriculture is at least three times more effective in reducing poverty than growth in other sectors. In Sub-Saharan Africa, it is estimated to be 11 times more effective.

Thus, agricultural development helps nations grow, feed their people, reduce rural-urban inequality and achieve social stability. The sustainable development of rural areas increases food security and nutrition, supports the conservation of water and other natural resources, and builds healthy communities that can offer opportunities to youth.

We need more countries to target resources to rural areas and to the numerous sectors that have a role in improving rural livelihoods. Research is one of those sectors.

There is evidence that every dollar spent on agricultural research generates $9 in additional food for developing countries. The UAE has itself benefited from such investment, because research into salt-tolerant forage in marginal areas by the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture generated forage that was distributed in Oman, and here in the Emirates.

So, as I join the region’s leaders gathering in Abu Dhabi for the Gulf Forum to Enhance Food Security today, my message will be clear: to transform the rural world will require imaginative projects, partnerships and technologies.

We can bring about a world free of hunger and poverty. Yet we must be realistic. The future we want isn’t free. It will have to be paid for – not just with greater investment in agriculture and rural development to ensure nutritious food for all and not just by tearing down barriers to access to food, inputs or finances. It will cost us the time and effort to ensure greater attention that the benefits of development reach even into the most remote rural spaces. But the return on our investments will be seen for generations to come.

Kanayo F Nwanze is president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development. Nwanze will be a keynote speaker at today’s Gulf Forum to Enhance Food Security in Abu Dhabi