Dana Vettel

Hunger has declined for a third consecutive year, but around 645 million people still face hunger and nearly 2.7 billion cannot afford a healthy diet. Progress is possible, but it remains uneven. At the opening of #CFS54, I highlighted the need to connect policy more closely with investment. Making healthy diets affordable requires investment across the food system, from production and storage to processing, transport and markets. Small-scale producers need those systems to work so they can earn a better living and supply nutritious food reliably. The Committee on World Food Security brings together governments, scientific evidence and the experience of communities to guide these decisions. @IFAD helps translate that guidance into investments shaped by countries’ priorities. Through #IFAD14, we will focus on stronger markets, more rural jobs and greater resilience. Connecting farmers to buyers, reducing food losses and helping rural businesses grow are practical ways to improve both incomes and food affordability. Our shared task is to ensure that global policy leads to better investment decisions and that those investments make healthy diets more affordable and rural livelihoods more secure. #FinancingTheFirstMile

Today, I held a series of bilateral discussions with Member States and development finance institutions, focused on deepening cooperation, expanding investment opportunities and translating shared priorities into concrete results for rural communities. I met with Jeremy Wiggins of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Nguyen Quoc Phuong, Director General at Viet Nams Ministry of Finance and Liao Min, China's Vice Minister of Finance. These discussions are important to deepening our engagement with Member States and identifying opportunities for stronger collaboration. I also met Dr. Abdulhamid Alkhalifa, President of @TheOPECFund , and Michael Jongeneel, CEO of @FMO_development, to explore closer cooperation on development finance, private-sector investment and market creation, particularly in fragile contexts. A key milestone was signing a new cooperation and co-financing agreement with @isdb_group, alongside its President, Dr. Muhammad Sulaiman Al Jasser. This provides an important foundation for expanding joint investments, strengthening institutional cooperation and bringing our complementary expertise together. I also welcomed partners from the @arabcoordgroup for an exchange on how we can strengthen coordination, identify shared priorities and deliver greater collective impact. By working more closely across governments, international financial institutions and development banks, we can turn shared priorities into coordinated action and greater impact for rural communities on the ground. #FinancingTheFirstMile | #WBGMeetings | @IFAD

Global economic shocks are increasingly interconnected. When conflict, climate events and rising food, energy and fertilizer costs disrupt production at the first mile, the effects are felt across supply chains, markets and economies worldwide. At the IMF–World Bank Group Annual Meetings in Bangkok, the signing of a new co-financing agreement with @WorldBankGroup President Ajay Banga marked a significant step forward. It creates opportunities to deepen our operational collaboration, including through #AgriConnect and #WaterForward, and connect larger pools of capital to investments in rural communities. My discussions with Rashaid Ali Al-Bader, Director General of @KuwaitFund, Herman Saheruddin of Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance, and Samantha Bandara and Kapila Senanayake of Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Finance, focused on strengthening investment in rural economies, creating jobs and building more resilient food systems. By strengthening partnerships with governments, development banks and the private sector, we can mobilize more capital and take proven investments to greater scale. @IFAD | #IFAD14 | #FinancingTheFirstMile | #WBGMeetings

I leave India with a strong sense of what can be achieved when ambition is matched by investment and a clear focus on people at the first mile. Arriving in Bangkok, I am also reminded that no institution can deliver the scale of change we need alone. I am now in Bangkok to open @IFAD's new regional office premises and participate in @WorldBankGroup and @IMFNews Annual Meetings where the focus turns to how we work together to mobilize more capital and make development finance go further, particularly in countries facing conflict, climate shocks and fragility. As we advance #IFAD14, I see real potential to deepen our partnership with the World Bank, other MDBs and IFIs. IFAD brings five decades of experience and investment in rural communities. By connecting that reach and expertise with larger pools of capital, we can take successful investments to greater scale. The macro and micro must connect. Ultimately, what matters is not just how much financing we mobilize, but whether it translates into jobs, higher incomes, greater resilience and stronger rural economies. That is what financing the first mile is about. #FinancingTheFirstMile | #WBGMeetings

I brought a clear message to our joint dialogue with @BMZ_Bund today, and to my conversation with Lisa Paus and Sascha H. Wagner of the German Parliament: when conflict, climate shocks or economic disruption affect farmers and rural businesses, the consequences travel through food supplies, prices and supply chains. That is why investing at the first mile is also an investment in economic resilience and stability. The case for acting early is strong. Around one third of @IFAD’s active portfolio is in fragile contexts, and 55% of our financing goes to strengthening climate resilience. But resilience is also about opportunity. Germany has long recognized the value of combining development cooperation with stronger markets and private-sector engagement. Public finance can achieve much more when it opens the door to businesses and investors. In Cambodia, IFAD, small-scale pepper producers and the German company Fuchs Gruppe have worked together to connect farmers to higher-value markets, and participating farmers have increased their incomes by more than 50%. Germany’s continued commitment to effective multilateral cooperation and to mobilizing additional investment will be important as we build #IFAD14. My thanks to Johann Saathoff, Ina von Frantzius, Isabelle Bunte, Michael Evers and everyone who joined us at the IFAD–BMZ joint event. #FinancingTheFirstMile

Germany is one of @IFAD most important strategic partners, and our cooperation goes well beyond financing. It was a pleasure to meet Reem Alabali-Radovan, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development at @BMZ_Bund, to discuss how we can deepen our partnership around shared priorities including food security, resilience, private investment and greater effectiveness across the multilateral system. Germany has helped shape IFAD’s evolution as a development finance institution. Its support contributed to the launch of our Private Sector Financing Programme and our ability to mobilize more public and private capital for rural economies. We agree that private sector engagement is key. Together with governments IFAD invests in infrastructure, institutions, value chains and financial systems to create an enabling environment for local agribusinesses, strengthen producer organizations and expand access to finance. In complementarity, IFAD also invests directly into private sector entities through loans, equity investments and risk-sharing instruments to mobilize capital into rural markets that are often overlooked by traditional investors. We also discussed the impact of the Middle East crisis, extreme weather events and input shocks on global hunger. We share the concern about the impact of global shocks on rural communities and food prices. With IFAD, we invest in first-mile resilience before disruptions to food, fuel, fertilizers and trade escalate into wider crises. The results are tangible. In Brazil, a US$30 million IFAD investment helped anchor a financing package that has grown to US$286 million, aimed at increasing the resilience of 1.8 million people. In Mozambique, climate and weather information is already reaching more than 50,000 rural households, helping communities prepare for shocks before they become crises. This is the kind of impact we want to scale through #IFAD14. Stronger rural economies, greater resilience, more jobs and more investment reaching places traditional finance often overlooks. Every dollar contributed to IFAD helps mobilize around six dollars of investment on the ground. Germany’s leadership on effectiveness, transparency and reform will be important to an ambitious IFAD14 outcome. I look forward to addressing the German Parliament tomorrow and taking part in the IFAD-BMZ joint event “Germany–IFAD Partnership: Investing in Rural Opportunities and Jobs”. #FinancingTheFirstMile