UNDP's International Centre for Private Sector in Development

A new UNDP center opened its doors last week in Istanbul, Turkey. This new facility is called UNDP's International Centre for Private Sector in Development, and according to UNDP administrator Helen Clark, it aims to engage the private sector in anti-poverty efforts and to be a source of expertise on building business models that promote home-grown enterprises and create employment in developing nations. The private sector has a main role in fostering economic growth and development, and institutions like this centre will be of great help, since they serve as knowledge depots and a way to link local, regional and global development actors.

“People in country after country are calling not only for new freedoms and an end to injustice, but also for the chance to earn a decent wage and improve their standard of living. To meet their aspirations, countries need dynamic and competitive businesses creating jobs and spurring innovation” claimed Clark during the opening event. By actions like this brand new centre, UNDP tries to involve the private sector in international development and commit it to advance towards the accomplishment of the Millennium Development Goals.

- David Nebreda

SOURCE: UNDP

Rural Poverty Report

Recently the UN agency, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) published the 2011 Rural Poverty Report. This report is a comprehensive analysis of how many rural people live in poverty, who they are, and what challenges they face in the coming years (among other things). Here are some of the report’s key points:

“Despite improvements over the past 10 years that have lifted more than 350 million rural people out of extreme poverty, global poverty remains a massive and predominantly rural phenomenon – with 70 per cent of the developing world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people living in rural areas.”

“The overall rate of extreme poverty in rural areas of developing countries has dropped from 48 per cent to 34 per cent, led by dramatic gains in East Asia…But extreme poverty still persists in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.”

“It is estimated that food production must increase 70% in the next four decades to feed a projected population of nine billion.”

A number of initiatives have taken place to ensure food safety, including some nations buying land in developing countries and helping farmers mitigate and adapt to climate change. Additionally, IFAD’s president Kananyo Nwanze claims that more emphasis needs to be placed on helping rural women, who make up 60-70% of the farming community. One obstacle that will be particularly difficult to overcome is that more and more youth around the world are unwilling to become farmers, and instead want to move to cities. On one hand it is good to encourage households to rely less on farming as a source of income (as it will help alleviate poverty), but on the other hand, that shifts people away from farming at a time when food production is most needed.

The only way forward, as the report states, is that “smallholder farmers, small enterprises, governments and large multinational corporations investing in the agro-food chain, all need a concerted approach to improve the livelihoods of those one billion people living in extreme poverty.”

The above video is one story that represents the challenges stated in the 2011 Rural Poverty Report.

-Clare Ortblad

SOURCE: BBC News, IFAD