The Road to the SDGs

– Environmental degradation – Food insecurity – High unemployment among youth and women. X It addresses the need for transformation in the sector in order to eliminate hunger and malnutrition and create a platform for sustainable and inclusive economic growth that leaves no one behind. X It does so by considering lessons from the past about what worked well and what did not to change agriculture for impact. X The book does not seek to provide a comprehensive assessment of all the development programmes and projects that have been financed by IsDB on behalf of its MCs. Instead, it uses various representative programmes and projects as case studies to draw out generalised learnings that show the way forward. X The 13 concise and interrelated chapters cover the following content: – IsDB’s agriculture and rural development strategy and methodologies for financing agricultural investments at scale – The transformation required to sustainably increase agriculture (crops and livestock) and water productivity in the face of climate change – Practical solutions that can be deployed at scale to build the resilience of crop and livestock production systems and raise productivity in ways that enhance food security and generate extra outputs that can go to remunerative markets – Case studies from IsDB investments in MCs in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa – The importance of community empowerment, inclusive financing and youth employment to achieving sustainable transformation – Practical mechanisms that can be used to expand access to financing in rural areas in ways that empower communities and generate jobs for youth and women – Why strategic partnerships, both financial and technical, are necessary for expediting the needed transformation – How partnership arrangements can be developed to share knowledge and experiences, and continuously bring on board critical innovations to achieve impacts – Challenges hampering the sound implementation of projects in many IsDB MCs – The reverse linkage approach, a results-oriented technical cooperation mechanism pioneered by IsDB – Lessons from the evaluation of IsDB-financed operations over the past four decades that will inform its future interventions. X Its long-term aim is to create productive, resilient and commercialised value chain-led agriculture sectors that meet the food and nutritional security needs of the growing populations in IsDB MCs. ACHIEVEMENTS X Due to its popularity, the book was translated into French and Arabic for IsDB’s 2020 Annual Meeting in Jeddah. X The Asian Development Bank chose two of the case studies featured in the book (‘How to boost the productivity of smallholder farmers’ and ‘Lessons from an Islamic approach to rural financing’) for publication on its website to showcase best practices. X Publication of the book contributed to the design and resource mobilisation of the Regional Rice Value-Chain Programme in sub- Saharan Africa. It allowed IsDB to bring onboard several traditional and non-traditional partners to mobilise grant resources for the programme to support the beneficiary countries. INVESTMENT X By the end of 2017, IsDB had invested US$ 12.6 billion in agriculture and rural development, reflecting significant growth over the previous decade. This work is helping with the achievement of SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and will continue to yield strong benefits in the future. I S D B I N V E S T M E N T US$12.6 billion invested in agriculture and rural development US$ 1 invested in the agriculture sector in sub- Saharan Africa can lift at least 16 people out of poverty [ 59 ] T H E R O A D T O T H E S D G s | P R O G R E S S A N D A C H I E V E M E N T S