Innovation

Globalization, climate change, environmental degradation, migrations, the spread of communicable diseases and conflict are just some examples of evolving challenges and opportunities confronting rural poor women and men. Development practitioners constantly face new challenges and many good practices may quickly become obsolete. Making a positive and lasting impact on rural poverty requires the capacity both to implement tried and tested practices and to respond to new challenges and opportunities as they emerge. In other words, it requires the ability to innovate.

The complexity and diversity of rural poverty call for new, better solutions. Despite global progress towards the SDGs, many countries and regions are lagging behind, and social and economic inequalities are growing almost everywhere. This situation calls for new approaches to eradicating rural poverty and a better understanding of its challenges as seen by the rural poor.

Achieving one’s goals better

IFAD defines innovation as a new process, product or approach that adds value and delivers a sustainable, equitable, inclusive and/or new contextual solution to rural development challenges.

For IFAD, the most important innovations are those that impact poor rural people directly. IFAD aims to catalyse the generation, testing and scaling up of solutions that have the potential to contribute to deliver equitable, better and greater impact for the rural poor by leveraging on learning, strategic partnerships, digitalization and the implementation of suitable tools and guidelines.

Related publications

Related publications

Handbook for Scaling Irrigation Systems

October 2022
Handbook for Scaling Irrigation Systems is a joint publication between IFAD and IFC on how to develop and scale innovative solutions to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and increase crop productivity.

GeoTech4Tenure: Technical guide on combining geospatial technology and participatory methods for securing tenure rights

August 2022
This technical guide provides orientation for project designers and implementers on how to combine participatory methods and geomatics technology to strengthen legitimate tenure rights in land-based investments.

Mapping Rural Development: How to use GIS to monitor and evaluate projects

July 2022
This practical manual provides guidance on how to use geographic information systems (GIS) in the monitoring and evaluation of rural development projects.

Related events

Related events

IFAD Innovation Day 2023

June 2023 - EVENT
How to make innovation and impact investments work for the rural poor?

IFAD Innovation Talk on Evaluation through the lens of brain science: Building a humanized approach for better results

March 2023 - EVENT
This event will explore how neuroscience can enhance the potential of evaluations and how this impacts IFAD’s work.

Innovation for impact: delivering results for the rural poor

January 2023 - EVENT
During this special session of the IFAD Innovation Talks, IFAD’s President, Alvaro Lario, will share his vision of innovation for IFAD and how he expects this to deliver transformational impact for the rural poor.

Related news

Related news

2021 Agrobiodiversity Innovation Challenge

August 2021 - NEWS
Innovators who aim to mainstream agrobiodiversity solutions into the agri-food sector are welcome to submit applications to the Agrobiodiversity Innovation Challenge.

Third round of National Call for Proposals (Morocco): Supporting remittances in times of crisis in Africa

July 2021 - NEWS
The Financing Facility for Remittances (FFR) of IFAD is pleased to announce the third round of National Calls for Proposals (Morocco) 2021: supporting remittances in times of crisis in Africa.

Second round of National Calls for Proposals (Kenya and Uganda): Supporting remittances in times of crisis in Africa

April 2021 - NEWS
The Financing Facility for Remittances of IFAD is pleased to announce the second round of National Calls for Proposals (Kenya, Uganda) 2021: supporting remittances in times of crisis in Africa.

Related stories

Related stories

A digital divide is holding rural women back. Here is what we can do to change this

March 2023 - STORY
Many rural women are excluded from digital services. What is causing the digital divide and what can we do to end it?

From coca leaves to cocoa beans: How farmers in the Peruvian Amazon are innovating using digital tools

February 2023 - STORY
In Peru, IFAD-funded project helps small-scale farmers connect to new markets and access technical assistance online.

Why climate finance matters: Your questions answered

November 2022 - STORY
Climate finance is complicated, and we get a lot of questions about everything it entails. We’ve put together some answers to the ones we receive most often.

Related blogs

Related blogs

How livestock in Lesotho is adapting to climate change

January 2023 - BLOG
An IFAD-FAO study from Lesotho provides valuable insight on how to mitigate against climate change while sustainably producing enough healthy food for everyone.

Tackling food loss for sustainable food systems

September 2022 - BLOG
Reducing food losses makes food systems more sustainable. Although the exact causes are different for every crop and in every country, there are plenty of avenues to prevent, detect, and reverse these losses.

Do IFAD-supported projects reduce the risk of conflict? What the evidence says

April 2022 - BLOG
We used GIS to assess the impact of IFAD-supported projects on the likelihood of conflict in fragile contexts. Our results suggest that the presence of IFAD interventions may prevent conflicts from arising and reduce the overall number of conflicts.    

Innovation contact

Contact information

innovation@ifad.org