Policy Engagement and Civil Society: The Case of IFAD

This chapter examines the political economy of public policies oriented towards smallholder rural development, focusing specifically on the importance of the formation and strengthening of civil society organizations by farmers, and the ways that such groups can enhance the quality of public policies. It also discusses the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) model of country level policy engagement, which works to enhance the participation of farmers’ organizations (FOs) and rural people’s organizations (RPOs) in the domestic political process, and create spaces for exchanges of ideas and information between government actors, the private sector, and FOs/ RPOs. It provides some specific examples of IFAD’s recent experience in country-level policy engagement focused on FOs/RPOs in order to examine how international actors can facilitate the emergence of the better organization and participation of smallholders, and more attention from governments to the interests and needs of such actors.