Despite impressive economic progress made by the Asia and the Pacific region over the past three decades, the region still remains home for 60 percent of the world’s poor. Countries in the region have developed, or are developing, policies and strategies with the goal of reducing poverty. However, achievement of this goal is constrained by lack of institutional capacity to analyse and implement appropriate pro-poor policies. In view of this, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched a collaborative programme entitled “Pro-poor Policy Formulation, Dialogue and Implementation at the Country Level (PPFDICL)” to address this critical gap. The goal of the programme is to assist eight countries of the region in reducing rural poverty through enhanced institutional capacity to analyse, formulate and implement pro-poor agricultural and rural development policies.

IFAD has contributed USD 1.5 million to the programme. This technical cooperation programme (TCP) project has been designed in response to the initial commitment made by FAO to contribute USD 426 000 to the above programme. The goal of this TCP project is perfectly in line with the overall mandate of FAO as well as with the objective of the first of the six thematic areas covered by its Regional Strategic Framework for Asia and the Pacific. The objectives of this project are to: (i) build capacity of key government agencies in the analysis, formulation and implementation of pro-poor policies in agricultural and rural development; (ii) promote sharing of experiences and lessons learned on successful pro-poor policies among the countries through a knowledge network; and (iii) promote greater participation by civil society and the private sector in the process of pro-poor policy dialogue and advocacy. This project is an opportunity for FAO to act upon its core areas of support and to enhance its role and contribution to national policy-making processes.

The project will be implemented in close collaboration with the key government agencies, policy advocacy groups, national and regional policy institutes, and other national partners. The primary-stage beneficiaries of the project will be the male and female staff working in the related government agencies. The second-stage beneficiaries will be the men and women belonging to the poor families and disadvantaged groups, who will experience an improvement in their livelihoods as a result of implementation under this project of pro-poor policies and institutional reforms at the country level.