We are here to meet a young member of the UN family: IFAD, 22 years old. An organisation in the business of enabling poor rural people to fight poverty and hunger. Its strength has lain in its very specific mandate and possibly in the fact that it was able to build on previous trial and error in development strategies.

IFAD was created at a time when the world had understood that development could not come about through top down, prescriptive action. The fund could therefore start right away with a people-centred, participatory approach. Even though my work at the time was primarily in health, I benefited a lot in the eighties from material from IFAD on participatory planning.

IFAD has both an aim and a proven record in innovation. It has always been an organisation right at the centre of development strategies in the making. Although it has often been ahead of its time, a pathfinder, it has often not been given full recognition as such.

In order to pursue its specific mandate IFAD has had to bridge gaps between people, finance, public systems and the market:

• Its focus is right where it matters most: the district level and below.

• It is one of the few actors between microfinance and large credit schemes.
• It is a UN body with World Bank features, that – in contrast to the World Bank – has not needed to be transformed in order to become a tool for poverty eradication. That was its mandate from the start. IFAD started out right where current development thinking is now taking us, and has already been in business for quite some time.
• It is testing out new coalitions of actors in order to deal more effectively with complex issues such as agrarian reform.

IFAD’s holistic approach to the rural sector is in line with our Norwegian strategies as a partner in rural, agricultural and private sector development. But I would go further and acknowledge that, within its focussed mandate, IFAD as a source of knowledge development is in the lead as regards policy development.

So why, I ask myself, have we not given IFAD more attention in Norway? I do not know the answer, but I do know that Norway has been a firm supporter ever since the start in 1978. And, after the fifth replenishment negotiations of the fund, we have again affirmed that IFAD is a valuable channel for multilateral funding in the agricultural and rural sector. We believe in multilateralism and a UN system that is in a position to realise its full potential. This means that multilateral and bilateral action must be better linked. That is why we now need to learn more about what we can do together. We need to become involved, to learn and to become a partner that works more actively in a strategic alliance with IFAD and its coalitions, in order to achieve better shared results.

There is no way to overcome poverty without empowering the rural poor, without agrarian reform and access to productive assets. IFAD has demonstrated its ability to take the lead. This is the reason for this seminar.