Kuwait supports IFAD in fighting poverty

Kuwait's Deputy Governor and Representative at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) conference said that Kuwait supports the fund's efforts in development and fighting poverty. Hisham Al-Wugayyan told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) on Sunday on the sidelines of his participation in the 37th session of the fund's Board of Governors that the Kuwaiti delegation is pleased with the achievements of the fund's last session, by directly executing the projects it is funding, and setting a plan to increase the number of its bureaus to reach 50 by next year. IFAD was able to independently execute 94 percent of the projects it is funding, an issue which Kuwait being a founding member of the fund, had always demanded, said the Representative. Moreover, Al-Wugayyan hoped IFAD would soon be able to supervise and execute the rest of its projects. Al-Wugayyan praised the fund's efforts in developing and qualfiying its executive bureaus, and in running projects of positive effects on rural areas where three billion of the world's population live, noting that such projects are beneficial to poor people and small-scale farms. Al-Wugayyan, who is also Deputy Director General of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED), said he was pleased with the fact that the number of the fund's projects currently being executed had reached 241, with a USD 5.4 billion worth of funds. The Deputy Governor also praised the fund's efforts mainly after the Global Food Crisis of 2008, and the measures it had taken to prevent such crisis from occurring in the future. The Kuwaiti delegation had met with IFAD President Kanayo Nwanze to discuss cooperation between the two sides, and the positive results of the Arab-Asian first cooperation conference, the Afro-Arab Summit, and the two Syria donors' conferences, and their effects on development. Kuwait is currently negotiating with the Asian Development Bank to be a member in this financial institute, he said, adding that Kuwait will be the only Arab country to receive a membership in the bank. Al-Wugayyan praised the results of the meeting of the Board of Directors, mainly the decision to establish a consultative committee for the Tenth Replenishment of IFADs resources, aiming to study the availability of resources before the end of the ninth replenishment of the 2013-2015 time period. Kuwait's continuous participation in regional and international organizations and its prominent role in supporting Arab, African, and Asian developmental cooperation comes from the country's attention towards fighting poverty and developing economy, especially in the agricultural sector, he stated. Kuwait's delegation to IFAD's conference which kicked off on February 19 under the theme "investing in smallholder family farmers" included KFAED's regional director for Asia Pacific Waleed Al-Bahar and KFAED's executive director Youssof Al-Bader. IFAD is a specialized agency of the United Nations, which was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. The conference was organized in response to the food crises of the early 1970s that primarily affected the Sahelian countries of Africa, which presented the necessity of immediately establishing a fund to finance agricultural development projects for food production in the developing countries.