Brazil: UN Loans Set to Help Over 100,000 Poor People in Semi-Arid North-East
New York, Dec 11 2006 5:00PM
More than 100,000 poor Brazilians are expected to benefit from a United Nations-backed development and income-generating
project in the semi-arid north-eastern region of Latin America’s largest and most populous country.
The $47 million North-East Rural Family Enterprise Development Support Project will be partly financed by a $23 million
loan from the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) under an agreement signed last week at the Rome
headquarters of the agency, which is dedicated to eradicating rural poverty in developing countries.
The Brazilian Ministry of Agrarian Development will contribute $22 million to the programme while $2 million is to be
invested directly by project participants.
Some 20,000 poor people will participate directly in the project to create and consolidate family-owned rural
enterprises, with 100,000 people expected to benefit as a result of increased incomes, improved living conditions and
multiplying effects within the regional economy.
The North-East is home to the largest concentration of poor rural people in Brazil, a country with a total population of
some 188 million. The project will initially be implemented in the Xingó area and help poor families involved with the
development of small agro-industries and other rural enterprises to enhance their business skills and increase their
incomes.
It offers an alternative to many poor rural people who do not have access to enough land or have lost their farming jobs
due to mechanization or diversification in production, IFAD Country Programme Manager for Brazil Jean-Jacques Gariglio
said.
Some have already moved on and started their own small rural business, but in many cases they need technical assistance
or access to credit to strengthen their enterprises or to create new ones that could lift them out of poverty. The
project will work to strengthen organizations of rural entrepreneurs and help them to identify and promote new business
opportunities.
There are already some 600,000 rural small enterprises and micro-enterprises, both formal and informal, in the
North-East, most of them the result of women’s initiatives, including food products and textile handicrafts. With this
loan, IFAD will have provided funds for six projects in Brazil since 1980, totalling about $141 million.
ENDS