Message of His Excellency Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, President of the United Republic of Tanzania, delivered on his behalf by the Honourable Mizengo Peter Pinda, (MP) Prime Minister of the United Republic of Tanzania, on the occasion of the thirty-third session of IFAD's Governing Council
I feel greatly honoured and privileged being invited to speak on this auspicious occasion, of the thirty-third session of the International Fund for Agricultural Development Governing Council.
His Excellency Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, was to participate on this occasion personally but due to other pressing commitments he was unable to do so in the last minute. However, due to the importance of this meeting he chose me to come and speak on his behalf.
President Kikwete sends his greetings and commends the IFAD Secretariat for organizing the thirty-third session. He wishes this meeting a great success.
At the outset, may I take this opportunity to congratulate Dr Kanayo Nwanze for being elected by acclamation as the fifth President of IFAD by all member countries and I wish him success as he embarks on his discharging his responsibilities in the four-year term.
This session is taking place at the time when the world is recovering from the aftershocks of recent global turmoil rooted from serious food and financial crises, coupled with high fuel prices. It has recently been revealed that the number of under-nourished people in the world due to crises is now around one billion. The increased number of the hungry indicates the strategies which were designed to contribute to the achievement of the global and national goals of reducing hunger, including the Millennium Development Goal 1, have not yielded the expected results.
Tanzania reaffirms its continued commitment to work with IFAD to overcome the challenges facing agricultural development especially in developing countries. Since its formation in 1977, IFAD has strived hard to meet its objectives of ensuring that poor rural people have better access to and the skills and organization they need to take advantage of: natural resources, especially land and water; improved agricultural technologies and effective production services. Also there is need for a broad range of financial services, transparent and competitive markets for the agricultural inputs and produce. The opportunities for rural off-farm employment and the enterprise development, and the local national policy and programming processes need also to be emphasized.
The agricultural sector will continue to be the mainstay of most of the developing economies, particularly those of Africa, where the majority of the people still depend on agriculture as a source of livelihoods. In most African countries agriculture is the main source, not only of food as in all countries worldwide, but it is also a major source of income. This implies that, if we are to bring about sustainable agricultural development, the economic potentials in the agricultural sector must be fully exploited. Since the majority of the people who undertake farming activities in Africa are smallholder farmers, special attention in terms of support and facilitation need to be accorded to them if they are to contribute to the green revolution that we envisage in many developing countries, particularly Africa.
I know that the underlying IFAD's objective is the belief that the rural poor people must be empowered to lead their own development; to develop and strengthen their own organizations that can advance their own interest and dismantle the obstacles that prevent them from creating better lives. Rural people need to have a say in the decisions and policies that affect their lives and to strengthen their bargaining power in the market place. This belief is noble and existing experience on the ground has shown that IFAD is all out to meeting its mandate as is enshrined in its objectives. Through loans and grant, IFAD has worked with our governments to develop and finance various programmes and projects that have enabled poor people to overcome poverty by themselves.
In Tanzania, for example, IFAD’s support has been directed to many agricultural and rural programmes and projects. It suffices to mention three of these programmes. The first programme is the support through the Agricultural Services Support Programme whose objective is to improve agricultural productivity. This programme has made it possible for the formation of several farmers and livestock keepers groups that receive training through farm-field schools of different production technologies. This approach is beneficial as it has been practical, easily replicable and sustainable.
To read all the speech pleace click the title.
Source: IFAD.org
No comments:
Post a Comment