Scaling Up the Fight Against Rural Poverty - FIDAfrique

Other examples of scaling up include a technical assistance grant to the World Agroforestry Centre
(ICRAF) for the Diversification of Smallholder Farming Systems in West and Central Africa through
Cultivation of Indigenous Trees, which among other results has led to a gradual reduction in the
practice of slash-and-burn agriculture in these humid tropics areas; a grant for the Africa Rice Center
which enables it to scale up successful methods of participatory varietal selection and a communitybased
seed system approach, with a focus on IFAD loan projects; and the provision of nearly 23,000
‘biodigester’ tanks for biogas production to approximately 30,000 poor households in West Guanxi,
China. 18
A final example of the potential for scaling up in ENRM, and IFAD’s growing interest in this topic, is
a just completed study of the experience around the globe with weather index insurance to help
protect farmers from weather-related risks to crop production. Entitled “The Potential for Scale and
Sustainability in Weather Index Insurance for Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods” (IFAD 2010b) this
study focuses specifically on the potential for designing scaled up and sustainable interventions and
as such represents an excellent example of the approach which IFAD should explore in other thematic
areas to explore the lessons of experience (its own and that of others) for scaling up and sustaining
successful interventions.
Despite these examples of an effective focus on scaling up in selected cases, it appears that scaling up
has not been at the core of IFAD’s ENRM activities. However, the experience to date will be helpful
in exploring how to incorporate scaling up into IFAD’s future ENRM strategy, including its stress on
the more effective use of data collection, sharing and use in planning processes, its references to
mapping and assessment tools that can help define the relevant scale of intervention, its focus on the
policy and institutional context, and its emphasis on the need to mainstream climate change aspects
more effectively into IFAD’s traditional ENRM interventions.
2. Scaling up with value chains
Value chains offer a “vertical” form of scaling up by focusing not merely on the poor farmer, but on
the pathway from producer to consumer. Of course, projects with interventions designed to help the
development of an effective value chain do not necessarily mean that one expands the number of
beneficiaries in a significant way, since the project itself may be narrowly focused on a limited number
of participants or there may be constraints on the supply or demand side which make it impossible to
scale up the value chain horizontally, i.e., expand its scope so that it covers increasingly more
beneficiaries.
IFAD’s explicit focus on value chains is of recent origin. There is hardly a mention of value chains in
the Strategic Framework 2007-2010 (IFAD 2007), although the Framework devotes considerable
attention to market access, which is a key component of a value chain approach. By 2010, value chains
had moved to the core of IFAD’s thinking, as reflected in various recent speeches by IFAD’s
President, a speech by the IFAD’s Assistant President and various other public pronouncements. 19 And
various projects focused specifically on value chains are now under implementation or preparation. In
fact, according to President Nwanse’s speech in Nigeria on 10 March 2010, “[i]n value terms, the total
18 These examples are cited in the previously mentioned internal NREM review by IFAD.
19 President Kanayo Nwanze addressed this issue in speeches at Chatham House, London, on 2 November 2009;
at the UNIDO general conference on 7 December 2009; and at the High-level Conference on Development of
Agri-business and Agro-industries in Africa, in Abuja, Nigeria, 10 March 2010 (see
http://www.ifad.org/events/op/index.htm). Assistant President Kevin Cleaver raised the issue of value chains in
his presentation to IFAD’s Executive Board on 14-15 September in Rome. And IFAD made a presentation at the
WTO Workshop on Aide for Trade and Agriculture Supporting Smallholder Integration into Agricultural
Markets: Lessons from IFAD’s Experience, on17 March, 2010.
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