UNEP joins IFAD to launch
Environment and Natural Resource Management
(ENRM) policy in advance of World Environment
Day 2011
Rome/Nairobi, 1 June
2011- Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and Executive Director of the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and
Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International
Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD),
today called for a dramatic increase in
support for sustainable agriculture, including
smallholder farmers, as a way to drive green
growth and reduce poverty.
The challenge of feeding
more than nine billion people by 2050, alongside
the challenge of climate change, maintaining
healthy and productive land and sufficient
water resources require a more intelligent
pathway in terms of managing the world's
agricultural systems.
"Agriculture is
at the centre of a transition to a resource-efficient,
low-carbon Green Economy. The challenge
is to feed a growing global population without
pushing humanity's footprint beyond planetary
boundaries," said Mr. Steiner.
"Investments through
official development assistance (ODA) is
one way of catalyzing supports for smallholder
farmers. But government policies also need
to scale-up and accelerate smart market
mechanisms for unleashing investment flows
from the private sector," he added.
"Well managed,
sustainable agriculture can not only overcome
hunger and poverty, but can address other
challenges from climate change to the loss
of biodiversity. Its value and its contribution
to multiple economic, environmental and
societal goals needs to be recognized in
the income and employment prospects for
the half a million smallholdings across
the globe," added Mr. Steiner.
Rio+20 in Brazil next
year will be a major opportunity for the
international community to recognize the
role of farmers in informing the sustainable
development agenda and to provide the kind
of supporting policies and financial flows
able to unlock this potential, he said.
? The world's poor rural
people and especially farmers of the 500
million smallholdings in developing countries
are an untapped resource in addressing the
food security and environmental challenges
of our day.
? They feed one-third
of the global population and constitute
the largest share of the developing world's
undernourished. About 1 billion people living
on under US$1.25 per day live in rural areas
and 80 percent of these depend, to varying
extents, on agricultural activities for
their livelihoods.
? Smallholder farms
account for 60 per cent of global agriculture,
and smallholder farmers provide up to 80
per cent of the food consumed in Asia and
in sub-Saharan Africa. Agriculture and land
use change account for more than 30 per
cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
"Smallholders in
developing countries ? the majority of them
women - manage to feed 2 billion people,
despite working on ecologically and climatically
precarious land, with difficult or no access
to infrastructure and institutional services,
and often lacking land tenure rights that
farmers in developed countries take for
granted, " said IFAD's Nwanze. "Right
now, we are squandering the potential of
rural poor people to contribute to global
prosperity. Investing in sustainable smallholder
agriculture is a smart way to right this
wrong."
Global estimates of
investments for agriculture in developing
countries to meet Millennium Development
Goal 1 of halving the proportion of people
living in extreme poverty by 2015, are in
the range of US$14 billion to US$16 billion
per year. While ODA for agriculture and
rural development has doubled from US$4
billion in 2002 to US$8 billion in 2010,
the needs far exceed the current means.
"Developing country
governments are already using IFAD resources
to increase agricultural production in environmentally
sound and climate-smart ways, and this Environment
and Natural Resource Management Policy will
help us to support them even more effectively"
said IFAD's Director of Environment and
Climate, Elwyn Grainger-Jones. "Too
often policymakers think they have to choose
between feeding their people or protecting
the environment. That is a false choice.
We have to, and can, do both."
Investments in sustainable
smallholder agriculture must go hand-in-hand
with policy and institutional reforms, investments
in infrastructure and improvements in market
access, he said. Equally important, they
must also be informed by the knowledge and
needs of poor women and men.
On 5 June, UNEP will
celebrate World Environment Day (WED) in
India with one of the fastest growing economies
in the world and whose 1.2 billion people
continue to put pressure on land and forests
especially in densely populated areas where
people are cultivating on marginal lands
and where overgrazing is contributing to
desertification.
This year's theme 'Forests:
Nature at Your Service' underscores the
intrinsic link between quality of life and
the health of forests and forest ecosystems.
The WED theme also supports this year's
UN International Year of Forests.
NOTES TO EDITORS
IFAD
The International Fund
for Agricultural Development (IFAD) works
with poor rural people to enable them to
grow and sell more food, increase their
incomes and determine the direction of their
own lives. Since 1978, IFAD has invested
about US$12.9 billion in grants and low-interest
loans to developing countries, empowering
more than 370 million people to break out
of poverty. IFAD is an international financial
institution and a specialized UN agency
based in Rome ? the United Nation's food
and agricultural hub. It is a unique partnership
of 167 members from the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),
other developing countries and the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD).
UNEP
The United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) is the voice for the environment
in the UN system. Established in 1972, UNEP's
mission is to provide leadership and encourage
partnership in caring for the environment
by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations
and peoples to improve their quality of
life without compromising that of future
generations. UNEP is an advocate, educator,
catalyst and facilitator promoting the wise
use of the planet's natural assets for sustainable
development. It works with many partners,
UN entities, international organizations,
national governments, non-governmental organizations,
business, industry, the media and civil
society. UNEP's work involves providing
support for: environmental assessment and
reporting; legal and institutional strengthening
and environmental policy development; sustainable
use and management of natural resources;
integration of economic development and
environmental protection; and promoting
public participation in environmental management.
