ISLAMABAD: The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will begin this year a new five-year programme in Pakistan to target 1.5 million poor rural households representing 10 million people comprising households living in chronic poverty and small-scale farmers. The goal of the new programme is to reduce poverty in people living in rural areas and enhance food security.

The Country Strategic Opportunities Programme (COSOP) covering the 2023-2027 period with projects worth $231 million in commitment and co-financing has now been placed before the IFAD executive board for final approval, according to the document available to Dawn.

The COSOP sets out IFAD’s strategy to support the government in transforming smallholder agriculture and eradicating rural poverty within a systematic framework to build climate resilience, adaptation, mitigation and response.

The overall goal of the new programme is to contribute to inclusive and accelerated rural poverty reduction and enhanced food security in a gender, youth, nutrition and climate change sensitive manner.

Besides focusing on small farmers and rural people living in extreme poverty, the new programme in Pakistan will cover mainstream themes of women, youth, nutrition, climate change, persons with disabilities and indigenous people.

Strong emphasis will be placed on developing partnerships and building synergies with relevant bilateral and multilateral development partners, and the private sector in particular for agribusiness development, to promote investments in rural people.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2023