By Rima Alcadi
Today, the 23rd of February at 10.00 am, we had the pleasure of having Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as our guest. The session was moderated by the international broadcaster Isha Sesay.
The tent was bubbling with excitement. When Bill Gates enters, there is a moment of silence, the music stopped, the lights went off. Everything froze, except for the flickering of the camera flashes and our twitter wall, which had tweets flowing incessantly throughout the entire event (indeed, I suggest you look at these, tweeters did a fantastic job at capturing the gist). Isha Sesay is originally from Sierra Leone –small scale farming is very close to her heart, a very personal interest, she says. And indeed, she was a great moderator.
Mr Gates started off by announcing that IFAD’s President Kanayo Nwanze and he had just signed a new partnership agreement - to fund projects jointly - the type of projects that IFAD and BMGF were both funding in the past, but independently. He warmly welcomed FAO DG, José Graziano da Silva, and WFP Executive Director, Josette Sheeran.
Mr Gates said that investment in agriculture is the best weapon against hunger and poverty. He said “if you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture.” He reminded us that we do not have a strong awareness of what works and what does not. We are not putting enough pressure on improvement. His suggestion is to introduce a public scorecard. He says that this would ensure that we are all rowing in the same direction and that we are results-based.
Another key point was the need to verify where digital empowerment can help in poverty reduction. He refers to seeds, for instance breeding and sequencing information to reduce the breeding cycle. But this needs to be developed for the people that need these systems the most, the smallholder farmers. Also technologies such as video cameras can help smallholder farmers share information on best practices with other smallholder farmers, to complement the work of extensionists. He mentions the work of programme Digital Green in India. Digital empowerment can also help to collect better data. So he says it is a shame that people are still going around with pen and paper, as this makes information difficult to store, share and analyse. However, he cautions that it takes a lot of specific effort to deal with the issues of rural digital empowerment, as he learnt from his experience in Microsoft. So do not expect it to happen thanks to market forces.
Another strong message that he had for us Rome-Based Agencies (FAO, IFAD and WFP) was to strengthen our partnership. He cites the Purchase 4 Progress programme as an example. He finds that although this has had a good impact, it would have been even better if it had been coordinated in a better way – with guidance from FAO and funding from IFAD. There are real efficiencies to be gained by spelling out a division of labour among the agencies. Our ability to improve coordination will determine whether smallholder farmers can overcome poverty.
What were some of the questions?
How would Mr Gates assess his performance in the score card? Although the BMGF has been operating for 6 years only, they have been building on the strength of what others have done. The BMGF typically focuses more on upstream funding, to the CGIAR, and on specific crops only. So that if other development organizations also want to work on these, then they will partner.
How about climate change? According to Mr Gates, weather variability has always been a problem for smallholder farmers, yes climate change will make the weather more variable, but they will need the same strategies as always. The climate has never been benign for rural poor.
How about strengthening the capacity of Farmers’ Organizations (FOs)? FOs are a key element, and there is a need to bring farmers and ensure they have a greater voice with governments – to signal when policies are not adequate for smallholder farmers, or advise on issues that need to be addressed. There are lots of good FOs in Africa and the path to success is to have more. The involvement of grassroots organisations would be part of the scorecard.
What is the role of the private sector ? the private sector has a very important role – but we should bear in mind market failure, risks inherent in innovation, and the public good nature of these investments. These characteristics of investments in agricultural research imply that markets will always fall short. However, once an innovation is available, it is important to understand why the private sector does not buy in. Mr Gates is willing to have the private sector critique their work because he considers the private sector the acid test and the benchmark on sustainability.
My take?
I have a lot of questions related to the concept of the scorecard – perhaps because I am wary of the infamous “number game” which is typically associated with such systems. Also, what would be on this scorecard and who should decide? How and by whom will it be updated/amended if required?
I could not agree more with the need to partner with the private sector – especially considering the win-win case studies described in Prahalad’s “Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.” I would however want to see some focus on biodiversity as well - in agriculture and in our diets – for the sake of increasing resilience to climate change and improving nutrition (i.e., the quality aspect of our food) – and also because biodiversity is a resource that poor rural farmers already have.
Centre-stage with Bill Gates. If You Care About the Poorest, You Care About Agriculture
For a billionaire and former entrepreneur, Bill Gates is pretty candid about the limits of capitalism.
His perspective comes across as entirely apolitical. It’s an objective fact, he suggests, that markets will always fall short on research and development benefiting the world’s poorest people, most of whom are subsistence farmers. Investors simply calculate that the returns on smallholder farming are too slow and the risks too high.
Earlier today, Gates shared this viewpoint – and many more – at IFAD headquarters in Rome. As a centre-stage guest at the agency’s Governing Council of UN member states, he made a brief speech and a took part in a Q&A exchange moderated by broadcast journalist Isha Sesay. Before an audience representing governments, development agencies and farmers’ organizations, he repeatedly stressed the urgency of bridging the investment gaps in sustainable small-scale agriculture.
“Investments in agriculture are the best weapons against hunger and poverty,” said Gates. To measure their impact, he advocated a new system of public “scorecards.” As Gates sees it, such scorecards would make governments and their partners accountable for meeting productivity targets in the smallholder farming sector – and for directing agricultural resources to those who need them most.
“A different future”
Even before Gates arrived at IFAD, the 2012 session of the Governing Council had seen its share of luminaries. Yesterday’s session featured the President of Rwanda, the Prime Minister of Italy and the Vice President of Liberia. This morning, the Italian Minister for International Cooperation delivered a keynote address. Ministers of Agriculture from several countries have also participated.
Appearances aside, Gates was forceful and occasionally challenging in his comments. He praised the heads of the Rome-based UN food and agriculture agencies as “an exciting new generation of leaders.” At the same time, he urged them to be more coordinated in revitalizing an “outdated and somewhat inefficient” world food system.
With increased international attention now focusing on agricultural issues, he said, “we have the opportunity and the obligation to imagine a different future.”
Adapting to climate change
Ideally, of course, that future will be a time when smallholder farmers are able to sustainably increase food production, lift their families out of poverty and preserve the land for generations yet to come. To get there, Gates said, they will need access to innovations such as drought- and flood-tolerant seeds, micro-irrigation systems, and vaccines for livestock.
“When you put the right tools in farmers’ hands, the results can be magical,” said Gates. In fact, small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa could nearly triple their crop yields in the next 20 years with the right interventions, according to Gates Foundation research.
During the Q&A session, Gates returned to this topic, adding that the basic strategies for the future of productive small-scale agriculture would be the same even if farmers didn’t have the added burden of adapting to climate variability. “Climate change increases the urgency,” he said. “But the right things to do for agriculture are constant.”
The two organizations are already co-financing more than $180 million in agricultural development projects. Today’s statement will accelerate their joint efforts to improve rural livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.It’s a timely message for 500 million smallholder farmers who produce 80 per cent of the food in the developing world. The future they imagine – a future of health, nutrition, education and dignity for their families – will only come about through concerted action on the issues raised so provocatively by Bill Gates in Rome.
Watch the recorded webcast here:
A new chapter: IFAD and the Gates Foundation step up collaboration on sustainable agriculture
By Kevin Cleaver
The following post by IFAD’s Associate Vice President for Programmes also appears on Impatient Optimists, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation blog.
For the past three decades, I’ve had the privilege of working with smallholder farmers around the world. They are among the poorest people on the planet, and yet I’m consistently struck by their constancy and dedication to the land.
Tomorrow in Rome, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will launch an expanded partnership to help these farmers increase their productivity and lift themselves out of poverty. At IFAD’s 2012 Governing Council, Bill Gates and IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze will sign a statement of intent to accelerate our collaboration on ensuring food security and improving rural livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
We drafted the text through an extraordinarily business-like process that took just two or three days from start to finish. In the world of high-profile partnerships, that’s all but unheard of. To me, it demonstrates that IFAD and the Foundation are embarking on our joint enterprise with the same level of commitment that smallholder farmers have always brought to feeding their families and communities.
This is critical because of the many competing priorities in the vast realm of international development. At times, the public, donors and the media may be tempted to turn their attention to the next big thing – the latest trend or more “attractive” cause. In the end, however, the soil provides our sustenance. Food security is a prerequisite for progress on every other development goal.
In any case, agriculture must be a top priority as the global population climbs toward a projected peak of 9 billion by 2050. To meet the world’s need for 60 per cent more available food, farmers will have to increase crop yields on a limited quantity of arable land. And they’ll have to do this sustainably, while adapting to the insidious effects of climate change.
The partnership between IFAD and the Foundation can give farmers a boost in their admittedly uphill struggle. In many ways, our organizations complement each other perfectly.
IFAD brings to the table 35 years of experience working with smallholder farmers, governments, NGOs and the private sector on multilateral investment projects worldwide. We know how small-scale agriculture works, and we have developed workable models for financing smallholders’ projects and marketing their products. The Foundation brings its own formidable resources, a world-class platform for advocacy and a proven capacity for innovation. It also offers technological prowess and effective systems for monitoring and evaluating the impact of our work.
Technology is key. The simplest advances – more robust seeds, or even better ploughs and hoes – can tilt the scales toward food security and poverty reduction. We simply have to find out what works and then replicate it feverishly.
This is not entirely new ground for IFAD and the Foundation. In fact, the Foundation has already contributed $155 million in co-financing for several IFAD-supported projects, including initiatives to develop drought-tolerant maize in sub-Saharan Africa and stress-tolerant rice in Africa and South Asia. By formally endorsing an expanded partnership tomorrow, Mr. Gates and Dr. Nwanze will build on what we’ve already accomplished together. But more important, they’ll open a new chapter in agricultural development for millions of men and women who toil in the fields every day.
Smallholder farmers deserve nothing less than our all-out support. As long as they remain impoverished, we are all that much poorer, because their dedication to the land is the world’s best hope of feeding itself for generations to come.
