IFAD project in Burundi – improving nutrition diets, livelihoods and creating resilience to climate change through improved Agricultural practices.

Malnutrition and stunting are subjects close to my heart since I have seen plenty of it in my own country (Pakistan), my constituency (Thatta), and in the developing world at large. At the SSN I led we contributed through unconditional and conditional cash transfers to its reduction. This is the present and will also have to be the future and part of SOTF.

Many organizations in the development sector are contributing to its reduction through multidimensional approach. I have picked for today the example of Burundi and how IFAD’s investment of US$ 80.06 mm is transforming communities at the bottom of the inequality pyramid. The project is called “Programme national pour la sécurité alimentaire et le développement rural de l’Imbo et du Moso (PNSADR-IM) Programme de développement des filières phase II (PRODEFI II)” You can read more on it at (https://www.ifad.org/documents/38714170/41804382/case_study_burundi.pdf/393565d6-b3d3-f93f-cf09-8851291376ed?t=1681912400991) in French.

What the Burundi IFAD project offers is a fairly typical model of what is sustainable in such environments. It is a holistic approach to food systems, malnutrition, food insecurity, poverty, climate change, health security, and loss of biodiversity. To put the crisis in context, 55.8% of children less than 5 years of age are stunted as of 2022 statistics. The stakeholders in the first line of defence are indeed the smallholder farmers, who are hit by the crisis and are also most able to adapt to nutritional livelihood outputs when assisted by such a project.

The products include milking cows, rice cultivation, animal husbandry, nutritional high fruit plantation; and taking the products from farm to market in the most efficient manner. The lessons to be learnt are that when diversified agricultural production is followed it allows access to variety of foods whose selection has to be high on nutrition, creating new livelihood opportunities for the vulnerable communities. The promotion of crops with high nutrition value as per climate conditions has to be key and we see the same in this project: avocados, Japanese plums, iron fortified beans, orange flushed sweet potatoes, mushrooms etc. to name just a few. The focus continues to be on community action, solidarity groups, creating the FARN approach (home for nutritional rehabilitation and learning).

Whilst the above is being practiced in many parts of the world, what is of consequence for SOTF is a sustainability of the above. That can best be achieved when partnerships are improved. Linkages with other agricultural stakeholders, donors, impact investors, social entrepreneurs, and investors are key for the scaling of and the improved profitability of a basic success model. IFAD has the wherewithal to provide such linkages; being a specialized UN agency, an IFI for agricultural rural communities. Burundi is at the bottom of the poverty pyramid, fraught with many challenges. It is therefore a useful case in point for how much more can be achieved through a visionary approach to adding more technical and financial partners. SOTF must build on such impactful projects worldwide to achieve their goals.