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Speeches - Fawzi H. Al-Sultan
President of IFADOpening Address
FAO/Netherlands Conference on the Multifunctional Conference on Agriculture and Land
Maastricht, 12-17 september 1999
Mr. Chairman,Mr. Minister,
Your Excellencies,
Friends and Colleagues,
I am very pleased to participate in this important Conference organized by the Netherlands and FAO in the context of the preparations for the Eighth Session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. I am even more pleased that IFAD has been able to contribute to the preparation of this Conference.
The focus of next year's Commission Meeting is Integrated Planning and Management of Land Resources, a theme of central importance to IFAD. In this context I would like to express my appreciation to the Government of the Netherlands for its initiative in convening this Conference on the multi-functional dimension of agriculture as a major input to the CSD.
As part of our support for the Maastricht Conference IFAD helped to organize a Partners' Seminar in South Africa in July 1999. The Seminar provided an excellent opportunity for policymakers, development practitioners and agriculturists to engage in an exchange of views to develop the concept and application of the Multi-Functional Character of Agriculture and Land.
The Seminar came to the conclusion that one of the key questions is how the MFCAL principle can contribute to the achievement of agreed targets under AGENDA 21. Participants at the Seminar pointed out that the application of MFCAL would serve a number of important aims. It could provide a holistic framework for planning sustainable development initiatives both at the local and national level. It could also help to develop better indicators for monitoring achievement of AGENDA 21 targets, especially in the area of Sustainable Agriculture and Land Management. The South African Seminar also recognized that the role and responsibility of the various stakeholders in applying MFCAL need to be clarified.
Mr. Chairman,
Agriculture throughout history, has fulfilled a number of key functions in human society. It has provided the economic backbone to the rural economy, creating employment and income, producing food, as well as other crops, essential for our clothing and habitation. Where it has been practiced wisely, agriculture has helped to protect and enhance the natural resource base and sustain viable rural communities.
A consensus has recently emerged that a narrow focus on agricultural production should give way to a broader appreciation of rural livelihoods and welfare. This broader vision requires a better appreciation of the multiple functions of agriculture and the interaction between different land use patterns and the interests of different stakeholders. This would highlight the key issues involved and help to reconcile conflicting objectives. Such an approach, for example, would encourage a more balanced view regarding the so-called "low potential" areas, which nonetheless provide livelihood to millions of small farmers, and "high potential zones" which have more immediate production possibilities.
The multi-functionality concept is relevant to agro-ecosystems both in the North and in the South. But, nowhere is it more critical than in the drylands of the developing world especially in Africa, where two thirds of the land surface is desert or dryland. IFAD brings this perspective to the forefront in its role as the host of the Global Mechanism of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
Subsistence farming and pastoralism are the mainstay for the majority of farmers in Africa many of whom live in drought prone zones. Recognizing this, in 1986 IFAD launched a Special Programme for Sub-Saharan Africa to Combat Drought and Desertification. The Programme was specifically conceived to address the needs of African small farmers in low potential areas, particularly drylands, to restore productive capacity and mitigate the impact of drought through improved land use practices and water harvesting. Evaluations of the Special Programme have highlighted the range of innovative
means available, especially through water conservation techniques, to improve yields in dryland conditions while protecting the resource base.
In countries like Burkina Faso and Niger for example, programs for water and soil conservation have built on traditional techniques such as the "demi-lune" for water harvesting in dryland areas. As a result yields have been raised and vulnerability to drought has been reduced encouraging land rehabilitation investments. Such has been the attractiveness of these innovations, and their accessibility, that even farmers outside the project areas have started adopting them.
We have found that a crucial element in all efforts to take advantage of the multi-functional character of agriculture is ensuring the full participation of the intended beneficiaries through users' associations and self-help groups. An IFAD-supported project in Morocco highlights how very poor herders can act together in defense of their communal rangelands. Listen to the words of Miloud Ben Siria describing the changes that are taking place.
"Things are different now after the project. At first the herders thought they would lose their land by setting up the reserve, and the meetings in the beginning were like boxing matches. But now people understand and we have set up a 10,000 ha reserve. Now grass and trees are growing, forage has increased, the herders are better organized and understand the importance of animal health. If this project didn't exist, I would still be a herder but very poor and this area would surely have become a desert."
Mr. Chairman,
The international community as a whole now gives overriding priority to the eradication of poverty. In fact, United Nations Conferences have established the noble and ambitious target of reducing the number the absolute poor by half by the year 2015. The
bulk of the poor live in rural areas and agriculture through its multiple dimensions holds the key to overcoming this ancient scourge of humankind.
IFAD for its part has long been the only international financial institution exclusively concerned with ending poverty and hunger. We therefore approach the Maastricht Conference, and indeed the entire AGENDA 21 process of which this initiative forms an important link, in the hope of building new alliances that will allow poor farmers and herders to use the resources available to them in a more sustainable and productive manner.
A particular priority in this regard is giving poor rural groups access to productive assets such as land as well as productive services such as credit and extension. Within the context of multifunctional agriculture, access to productive assets raises first and foremost the issue of land tenure. Without secure land tenure, poor rural people are denied access to credit, improved technology and support services. Moreover, insecurity of land rights also focus attention on short terms gains at the cost of long-term sustainable use. Therefore, the right to land and water is fundamental to forging durable solutions to poverty and hunger.
It was in this context that IFAD together with the European Union, the World Bank and other organizations sponsored an unusual Conference on Hunger in Brussels in 1995. The large number of civil society organizations which participated in the Conference, played a decisive part in shaping its outcome. One important result of the Brussels Conference was the establishment of a Popular Coalition to Eradicate Hunger and Poverty which brings together inter-governmental and bilateral institutions with civil society organizations working together to eradicate hunger.
The Popular Coalition has taken up as a priority issue the question of land tenure to help marginal farmers and the landless. Using innovative modalities, including market based other non-coercive methods, the Popular Coalition is demonstrating that expanding access to land for the poor is now possible in a variety of settings. The multi-functional approach to agriculture will I believe provide a new impetus to such efforts by helping to
clarify the gains society as a whole will enjoy if land use patterns can be made more productive through a less skewed distribution of land.
Mr. Chairman,
The multi-functional approach raises a number of challenges. It needs to be made easily understood and operational as an efficient tool for planners in developing countries. The problem of valuing intangible costs and benefits of the various functions also need to be addressed as well as exogenous factors such as demographic trends. Perhaps most important and challenging of all is the imperative to evolve the framework so as to mobilize the synergies in agriculture's multiple functions and direct them to ending rural poverty.
During the coming days I am sure that my colleagues and I will learn from the experience of other participants at this Conference. In turn I hope that we can contribute to identifying new ways of working together so that the multifunctional framework for agriculture can provide a new basis to make progress on our shared goals to end hunger and poverty.
In that spirit I wish you fruitful and successful deliberations.
Thank You.