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As stated in its Strategic Framework 2016-2025, the overarching goal for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is to invest in rural people to enable them to overcome poverty and achieve food security through remunerative, sustainable, and resilient livelihoods. IFAD pursues this goal through three closely interlinked and mutually reinforcing strategic objectives: (i) increasing rural people’s productive capacities; (ii) increasing rural people’s benefits from market participation; and (iii) strengthening the environmental sustainability and climate resilience of rural people’s economic activities. To hold itself accountable on progress made in achieving this goal and these three strategic objectives, IFAD has adopted a unique approach to reporting impact at the corporate level, building on rigorous project-level evaluations. This report provides the results of these efforts to assess the corporate impact of IFAD investments for the Tenth Replenishment of IFAD’s Resources (IFAD10) period of 2016-2018. Corporate impact is founded on the impact of individual IFAD-funded interventions. This report provides an overview of corporate impact estimates, which determine whether IFAD met its IFAD10 targets, as well as project-level results including lessons learned from the project-level analysis. The report includes the main results of the impact assessment of individual projects. Out of a total portfolio of 104 projects completed during the 2016-20181 replenishment period, 19 have been evaluated through 17 studies, spanning the five IFAD regions. Overall, the 17 impact assessments completed as part of IFAD10 show significant impacts on the lives of project beneficiaries relative to the corporate goal of greater economic mobility and its three supporting strategic objectives. In line with these findings, the results of the corporate impact assessment show that IFAD10 has exceeded its targets for its overall goal of fostering economic mobility and for two of the three strategic objectives.

The Coastal Community Development Project (CCDP), implemented between 2013 and 2017, was designed to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth in 12 coastal districts of Indonesia. The project took a comprehensive approach, combining sustainable marine and coastal natural resource management with economic and livelihood development in coastal and small island communities where poverty was endemic. It invested in fisheries, aquaculture, and related marketing and support structures. Project participants were provided with fishing gear and motorized engines for their fishing boats, enabling them to fish further from the coast, and thus catch a more diverse array of higher-value fish. They were linked to profitable markets, and fish processing groups were established that primarily enabled local women to process and market fish. Infrastructure groups were created to construct village information centers, fish smokehouses, processing warehouses and marketplaces. Additionally, the project provided cooler boxes to store fresh fish and reduce post-harvest losses. It also offered support for food-safety certification. Steps were taken to improve the governance and management of marine resources, including through village-based integrated coastal management plans and the designation of marine protection areas. An impact assessment of CCDP was conducted in 2018. The assessment used a mixed-methods approach that combined quantitative household-level and community-level surveys and a qualitative survey (focus groups discussions and key informant interviews).

Climate variability, associated with farm-income variability, is recognized as one of the main drivers of livelihood diversification strategies in developing countries. Analysing determinants of livelihood diversification choices, to better understand household strategic behaviour in the event of climatic risks and other shocks, is important for the formulation of development policies in developing countries highly dependent on rain-fed agriculture, like Malawi. We use geo-referenced farm-household-level data collected in 2010-11 to investigate how climatic variability influences the pattern of diversification that farmers adopt, and the impacts of these choices on welfare. To do so we apply the 'vulnerability to expected poverty' approach which measures the future level of poverty taking into consideration the role of risk and uncertainty. The analysis considers the effect of policies and institutions such as fertilizer subsidies, extension services, safety-net and credit on diversification choices. The results show that higher levels of climate risk generally increase the likelihood of diversification across labour, cropland and income, suggesting the importance of diversification as a response to constraints imposed by increased risk. In contrast, we find that in areas with favourable average rainfall conditions households are more likely to diversify income, suggesting diversification as a response to opportunities. In terms of welfare, the analysis performed on the components of vulnerability to poverty provides evidence that climatic variables are key determinants of both components of vulnerability (expected consumption and its variance). Fertilizer subsidies are found to be significant in diversification choices for all dimensions and also particularly effective in reducing vulnerability to poverty in high variability environments although the same does not hold for extension. Looking at differences across gender, we find that women labour diversification is less responsive than men's, resulting in a lower positive impact on expected consumption per capita., FAO Document Repository: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4887e.pdf

We summarize existing theoretical claims linking poverty to rates of deforestation and then examine this linkage empirically for Costa Rica during the 20th century using an econometric approach that addresses the irreversibilities in deforestation. Our da, FAO Document Repository: http://www.fao.org/3/a-ae401t.pdf

We review theory linking poverty to deforestation and examine this link using multiple observations of Costa Rica after 1960. Country-wide disaggregate data facilitate empirical analysis of poverty’s location and its impact on deforestation. If where the poor live is not controlled for, poverty’s impact is confounded with differences between richer and poorer areas. Without controls for location there is no apparent effect of poverty. Using our data over time to implement controls for location, however, we find that the poor are marginalized, on less profitable land. With our controls for location, the poorer areas appear to be cleared more rapidly. This suggests that poverty reduction aids forest conservation. For the very poorest areas, this result is weaker and another effect is found: deforestation in the poorest areas responds less to productivity, i.e. the poorest people appear to have less ability to expand on productive or to reduce on unproductive land.

This paper presents the construction of a spatially explicit, nationally disaggregated measure of poverty over time in Costa Rica. The paper first describes the two possible methods considered for the construction of a poverty map: principal component ana, FAO Document Repository: http://www.fao.org/3/a-ae403t.pdf

We review claims about the potential for carbon markets that link both payments for carbon services and poverty levels to ongoing rates of tropical deforestation. We then examine these effects empirically for Costa Rica during the 20th century using an econometric approach that addresses the irreversibilities in deforestation. We find significant effects of the relative returns to forest on deforestation rates. Thus, carbon payments would induce conservation and also carbon sequestration, and if land users were poor could conserve forest while addressing rural poverty. However, we find poorer areas are less responsive to returns. This and transaction costs could lead carbon payments policies not to be focused upon the poor. Other practical considerations may also dampen an understandable enthusiasm for service-based payments addressing both environment and inequality. Nonetheless, as the poor live in areas with more forest, they may benefit most from payments., FAO Document Repository: http://www.fao.org/3/ae402e/ae402e00.pdf

Land use change is a key requirement for improving rural incomes and making a significant reduction in poverty levels globally. Over 70% of the world's poor are located in rural areas, with land use as a major source of subsistence. Improving the productivity of their land use systems is essential for increasing incomes and food security among them. Land use change is also a relatively low cost and rapidly implementable means of climate change mitigation. To the extent that the land use changes required for poverty alleviation coincide with that required for carbon sequestration, significant synergies can be harnessed in meeting both objectives. Estimates of predicted supply costs and demand prices indicate that several types of land use change appropriate for small and low income landusers will be a competitive source of emission reduction credits, although again there is considerable uncertainty in the final form of the market. However, even where there is significant potential for sequestration payments to contribute to poverty alleviation, considerable effort will be required to move from the objectives to the reality. In some cases this may be made through the structure of carbon sequestration payment programs, to address the investment and insurance needs of poor producers and provide adequate incentives for participation. In other cases larger institutional and policy reforms may be necessary in order to create the conditions necessary for poor landusers to benefit from carbon sequestration payments., FAO Document Repository: http://www.fao.org/3/a-ae046t.pdf