Gérardine Mukeshimana, Vice President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), emphasized the importance of investing in community-driven innovations to enhance food security during her opening remarks at the World Agri-Food Innovation Conference in Beijing on 12 October 2025. She highlighted that when rural communities are empowered to experiment, adapt, and share solutions, they can transform challenges into sustainable livelihoods. Mukeshimana stressed that IFAD’s role is to partner with farmers in learning and scaling innovations rather than merely providing distant financing.
The third World Agri-Food Innovation Conference focused on identifying and scaling innovative solutions to strengthen agrifood systems. IFAD shared its experience supporting community-driven innovations across 100 countries, promoting affordable, adaptable, and scalable solutions from the Global South. Mukeshimana also attended a reception showcasing China’s achievements in poverty alleviation and rural transformation, which highlighted joint efforts to enable other developing countries to learn from China’s success.
A key mechanism of this collaboration is the China-IFAD South-South & Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) Facility, established in 2018 in Beijing. The SSTC Facility facilitates knowledge and technology sharing across 20 projects in 38 developing countries, fostering global exchange of rural development practices.
During her visit, Mukeshimana planned meetings with officials from the Ministry of Finance, the Agricultural Development Bank of China, and the China International Development Cooperation Agency to discuss remaining development challenges in China, with a focus on improving rural livelihoods and promoting environmental sustainability. The discussions also aimed to leverage China’s expertise to benefit regional and global development through further SSTC initiatives.
From 15–16 October, Mukeshimana will visit Huaping County in Yunnan Province, where IFAD and the Chinese government co-invest in empowering rural youth to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices and technologies, including solar-powered irrigation systems. She emphasized that scaling up such community-driven innovations strengthens resilience to climate change and secures sustainable futures for rural families and communities.
Since 1981, IFAD has been investing in China, providing a total of US$3.45 billion—including US$1.3 billion of its own funds—benefiting approximately 4.6 million households in remote rural areas. This long-term partnership exemplifies the potential of community-driven approaches to transform rural livelihoods and build resilient agrifood systems globally.
