Haya to address IFAD meeting

Dubai: Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain, wife of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, will deliver a keynote address as the United Nations Messenger of Peace at the Governing Council meeting of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which gets under way in Rome tomorrow.

She will be joined by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Chairman of the Board of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), who will be another keynote speaker at the meeting.

UN statistics show there are more than a billion people in the world between 15 and 24 years of age making up on average 20 per cent of the population of developing countries. Against this backdrop, the panels will consider why rural areas are not benefiting from this huge resource and why so many young women and men are leaving rural areas to seek livelihoods elsewhere.

On top of the agenda is the potential for young people in developing countries to drive successful agriculture and rural economic growth.

The second day of the meeting will include four panel discussions with a regional focus — covering Asia and the Pacific, the Near East, North Africa and Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The panels will explore the challenges faced by rural young people and feature agricultural and rural development experts, young entrepreneurs from rural areas and leaders of youth-based organisations.

The Governing Council will review IFAD's work over the past year and take stock of the agency's progress in increasing both the size and effectiveness of investment in agriculture, with the goal of empowering poor rural women and men in developing countries to achieve higher incomes and improved food security.

During the course of 2010, IFAD expanded its investment portfolio and activities in all the regions where it works. The organisation also boosted resources mobilised through co-financing by about 140 per cent over 2009. Together with IFAD's own financing for programmes and projects, the funds committed reached $2.4 billion (Dh8.81 billion), about 80 per cent more than the total for 2009.