On 8 May 2020, the International Fund for Agricultural Development held a live webcast to discuss the impacts of COVID-19 on rural communities and small scale agriculture in developing countries, how they have already benefitted from IFAD’s resilience-building, and how IFAD is providing response and recovery efforts.
The speakers were: Paul Winters, Associate Vice-President of Strategy and Knowledge Department of IFAD, Margarita Astralaga, Director of the Environment, Climate, Gender and Social Inclusion Division of IFAD, Sara Mbago-Bhunu, Director of the East and Southern Africa Division of IFAD, Rossana Polastri, Director of Latin America and the Caribbean Division of IFAD, Esther Penunia, Secretary-General of the Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development, and Pio Wennubst, Switzerland Ambassador to the UN in Rome.
COVID-19 is already having adverse impacts on rural people, who are particularly vulnerable in terms of the spread of the virus itself and the knock-on economic effects. By supporting rural people’s production and marketing activities and ensuring crisis-resilient support services are available, IFAD enables them to maintain their business and livelihoods during and after the crisis. This will build rural people’s resilience to the effects of the crisis, prevent them from backsliding into poverty, and protect the positive impacts previously achieved in IFAD projects (IFAD).
Follow the conversation on Twitter with #IFADpostCOVID19.
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