The Specialized United Nations agency, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has approved $67 million to support projects intended to empower the rural poor in Mozambique over the next three years, APA can report on Monday.The announcement was made Monday by the IFAD representative in Mozambique, Robson Mutandi during the annual review meeting of the Country Strategic Opportunities Programme (COSOP).

The programme was approved in 2011, and establishes a framework for the partnership between IFAD and the Mozambican government.

But Mutandi stressed that the funding is results based and it means Mozambique receives the entire sum depends on its performance and should it fail to manage funds efficiently, the money can be allocated elsewhere.

This money depends on results meaning that if a country does not perform well, the sum allocated will be taken from it, and offered to another country which is performing well, but we can only take funds away from countries if we are sure that the performance is not good, he said.

Mutandi said that recently IFAD took $25 million from a project which could be shown to be performing badly.

For his part, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Adriano Maleiane, regarded the seminar as a moment for reflection on the degree of project implementation and performance by identifying actions to improve interventions and maximizing the results of IFAD funding.

Maleiane stressed the three strategic objective of COSOP, namely to improve access by small producers and artisanal fishermen to factors of production, technology and resources, to improve access to markets, and to improve access to sustainable financial services.

Maleiane said that the current portfolio of IFAD projects already under way cost over $200 million and believed that these projects, in agriculture, small scale fishing, market linkages, the development of the value chain and food and nutritional security, could contribute significantly to reducing levels of poverty.

Very recently the country obtained a boosting of financial resources in the IFAD projects with funds from the European Union, which sought to help increase capacity to respond to the Millennium Development Goals in the areas of food and nutritional security, through coordinating efforts between the Mozambican government and three United Nations Agencies namely IFAD. FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) and WFP (World Food Programme), he added.

Source: StarAfrica