IPS' senior journalist Joyce Chimbi in conversation with IFAD President Dr. Alvaro Lario. Credit: IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
BAKU, Nov 16 2024 (IPS)

Life in remote, marginal areas, drylands and deserts is increasingly becoming difficult because rural people are in the crosshairs of an unprecedented climate onslaught. A substantial number of lives and livelihoods are on the line, as nearly half of the world’s population, 3.3 billion, lives in rural areas and 90 percent of them are in developing countries.

For many of them, agriculture is their lifeline and yet, there are increasingly limited tools and resources to build climate resilience. Dr. Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and UN Water Chair, spoke to IPS about the urgent need for an ambitious climate adaptation goal and focus on how the poorest, who are being more impacted by climate change, can benefit.

“Most of the heads of state I speak to, especially in Africa, are very much focusing on how they can support their rural areas with many of the extreme weather events they experience, whether it is floods, droughts or extreme heat. That goes even beyond agriculture,” Lario observed.

“Climate adaptation, especially for rural people, is at the centre of our work. We believe it should also be at the centre of the discussions at COP29. We must unlock the finance and solutions to support rural women and men to adapt to extreme weather events. At COP we talk a lot about mitigation and what is needed in terms of the technology and the energy transition, but less about adaptation.”

Lario further stressed the need for discussions on envisioned goals in terms of “climate adaptation and also, more importantly, how that trickles down to the small-scale farmers and the rural areas. During COP, strong announcements were made, in particular an announcement of increased investments in climate finance by multilateral development banks.  We need to see how this will be implemented. IFAD has committed to investing 45 percent of our Program of Loans and Grants over the next three years into climate finance, and that mostly means adaptation.”

Lario is a seasoned international development finance leader. He received a PhD in Financial Economics from the Complutense University of Madrid after completing a Master of Research in Economics at the London Business School and a Master of Finance from Princeton University. Under his stewardship, IFAD became the first United Nations Fund to enter the capital markets and obtain a credit rating, enabling the IFAD to expand resource mobilization efforts to the private sector.

On progress towards achieving COP29 top priorities, the IFAD President observed, “We only have a first draft of the negotiation and there is reference to adaptation. However, it is only the preliminary stage, so our ask is to ensure that we have a finance goal for adaptation, not just the overall goal for climate finance in general. We also need to start discussing what the financial vehicles should be and the instruments to mobilize the private sector.”

“We need to ensure the right structures or platforms that allow the private sector to come in are in place. At IFAD, we have been putting together a number of these structures, for example, with local financial institutions and with carbon credits, to attract private sector money into projects that benefit rural farmers.

Throughout his participation at Baku COP29, Lario has reiterated the need to send out a clear message that if there is going to be a successful energy and sustainable food systems transition, individual communities need to reap and feel the benefits. Emphasising that climate adaptation investments are not a sunk cost as they save lives, support livelihoods, and are key to addressing inequality.

According to UN statistics, as of 2022, four out of five people lacking at least basic drinking water services lived in rural areas. As Chair of UN Water, he has, in tandem, emphasized that extreme heat and too much or too little water are threatening the livelihoods of small-scale food producers who supply over a third of the world’s food.

Lario, for instance, says that a historic drought in Brazil has impacted coffee production. In Ghana, erratic rains cut cocoa production by half. And in Southern Africa, maize harvests are well below average due to an historic dry spell.

Stressing that “in many commodities and crops, this is also impacting food prices. Food inflation across developed and developing economies will always adversely impact those communities with lower incomes who are less resilient.

“So here in Baku, as world leaders work toward new climate finance goals, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is advocating for a truly ambitious commitment to support small-scale farmers. Investing in food producers’ resilience is not only the right thing to do—it’s an investment with a business and social return,” Lario emphasized.

IPS UN Bureau Report