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| Participants at the official opening of the Ifad-Banjul Forum 2012/PHOTO:M.E. NJIE |
This
year’s 7th
Regional Forum for Ifad-funded projects (12 to 15
November, 2012) is meant to highlight and share the knowledge, experience on
best practices and lessons learned during projects implementation, including
areas of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities
and the threats to further and sustained progress.
Organized and co-financed by the International Fund
for Agricultural Development (Ifad) projects and Gambia’s Ministry of
Agriculture, the forum brought together Ifad-funded projects in West and
Central Africa Division (WCA).
The Forum is also intended to strengthen the knowledge
base for effective project delivery and renewed trust, relationships, shared
commitment and common ground; and to agree on approaches and needed actions
necessary in a more comprehensive implementation and scaling-up process for
sustained effort and far reaching impact.
“Monitoring and evaluation is indeed key to project
sustainability and success,” Gambia’s Agriculture Minister Mr. Solomon Owens
said during the opening at the Kairaba beach hotel in Gambia on Monday,
while describing as “important” the theme: “Results-based management for
sustainable Rural Poverty Reduction: Lessons Learned and Challenges.”
He said emphasis should be placed on effective
coordination of policy and result. The beneficiaries should be adequately
empowered to have tools that would enable them to actively participate in
result and evidence-based systems.
This will ensure the critical masses are met,
increasing the viability of the agricultural sector, he added.
Since 1982, the Gambia has enjoyed funding from Ifad
for nine projects worth US$53.6 million and a new project, the national agricultural land and water management
development (Nema) which is estimated at a record US $34 million is in the
process of being approved.
The Government of The Gambia (GoTG) is fully aware of
the fruitful partnership and assistance provided by Ifad, says Minister Owens,
while urging participants to apply new skills and knowledge from the forum to
improve the pro-poor impacts of Ifad-funded projects in West and Central
African countries.
“Ifad’s programme of work in WCA supports production
and productivity based agricultural-led poverty reduction,” Mr. Ides de
Willebois, Ifad’s director for WCA said. “The WCA lending programme is
increasingly focused on supporting agricultural productivity growth, and
continues to support the development of strong rural institutions.”
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| 7th Régional forum for IFAD-funded projects to Banjul. Sharing experiences and knowledge for change. |
According to Mr. Willebois, Ifad operations in the WCA
region are contributing positively to sustainable rural livelihoods across the
region, targeting poverty and gender - the hallmarks of Ifad’s approach and
operations and performance of WCA projects which continue to be “generally
satisfactory.”
Speaking on behalf of the UN Development Programme
(UNDP) Resident Coordinator Ms. Chinwe Dike, a Programme Specialist Mr. Abdou
Touray said the topic at the center of the forum is relevant and timely for the
UNDP as a development partner.
“It reflects the way a project applies processes and
resources to undertake interventions to achieve commonly agreed results,” Mr.
Touray said.
“The outcome of
the forum will contribute immensely to both the attitude and practice of
project design, implementation and monitoring within the participating
countries and above all build capacity of managing for results leading to a
more effective use of development resources,” he added.
Some of the key activities at the forum are
portfolio session, presentations, plenary sessions on project experiences,
working groups, share fair, field visits, and lessons learned from field visits
among other things.
Written by Modou S. Joof
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