20 January 2012: The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has announced a US$47 million loan to China to enhance the livelihoods of rural men and women through the Guangxi Integrated Agricultural Development Project.

The project will scale up innovative approaches to agriculture, improve access to markets and information. In particular, it will seek to increase resilience to climate-induced calamities, based on an understanding that natural disasters have increased in frequency and intensity, posing a growing challenge to smallholder farmers. The project’s total cost amounts to US$98 million and will be co-financed by the Guangxi government and project beneficiaries who are estimated to be 1.92 million rural farmers. [IFAD Press Release]