JEDDAH/ROME – The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) pledged $41 million to develop new projects in the country during the transition period, it said in a statement Saturday. The pledge includes $31 million from IFAD's core resources as well as $10 million from the Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Program (ASAP), a new financing instrument established by the Fund to scale up and integrate climate change adaptation in smallholder development projects. ?Since 1979, IFAD has worked in Yemen to enhance rural economic growth by supporting national programs in the agriculture and fisheries sectors and focused on enhancing food security, women's empowerment and community development. The ongoing IFAD-financed projects in Yemen are worth $230 million, of which $130 million is co-financed from domestic sources and the rest by external financiers, such as the European Union (EU), Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and World Bank (WB). IFADs work in the rural areas of the country is supporting over 1.2 million poor women and men to build their resilience to shocks and conflict, while at the same time, improving their household food security and incomes. The new resources pledged by IFAD will allow the scaling up of successful investments to cover additional communities and governorates and introduce innovations within the IFAD supported country program. These investments are expected to stimulate rural economic growth and create jobs for an additional one million poor women and men in the rural areas of Yemen. The IFAD supported country program has developed strong implementation capacity through decentralized project management units at governorate level as well as the Economic Opportunities Fund (EOF), a public-private partnership established in Yemen in 2010. Backed by IFAD and the EU, the Economic Opportunities Program is financed by IsDB. – SG
