Based in Rome and with project support from the Switzerland Operations Centre (SWOC), UNOPS provides fund administration and project supervision services to International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) projects in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova and Romania.

UNOPS has also strengthened it ongoing partnership with the United Nations Interregional Crime

Fund management

Clients select UNOPS for fund management services because of its recognized expertise in delivering projects in development settings and, as a United Nations organization, its ability to provide independent, impartial supervision of programme implementation.

UNOPS supplies the full range of fund management services, addressing both project supervision and fund administration. In its work for IFAD, UNOPS has helped reduce hunger and malnutrition, and increase incomes, educational standards and human wellbeing through microfinance, institution-building, training and capacity development.

The following are examples of UNOPS support for IFAD projects:

Albania

In Albania the IFAD Mountain Areas Development Programme is raising the living standards of mountain residents, frequently impoverished due to small farm size, poor quality land and limited access to markets and off-farm employment. With modest resources, farmers cannot boost resources by investing in good seeds and equipment.

The programme is helping increase agricultural production and incomes from agriculture and rural enterprises, and improving physical infrastructure and household food security and nutrition. IFAD has commissioned UNOPS to monitor, supervise and advise on implementation of the $23.2 million programme and administer loan disbursements. So far the programme has established a Mountain Areas Development Agency, responsible for programming, planning, fund management and providing informational, technical and managerial support for mountain areas development.

Other key programme components include establishing a Mountain Areas Finance Fund to offer rural finance; rehabilitating rural infrastructure, in particular irrigation systems, roads and water supply; and support for primary agricultural production.

Azerbaijan

The IFAD North-East Development Project is improving livelihoods of Azeri households where neglect of irrigation and drainage systems has caused declining agricultural productivity and acute rural poverty. In 2002, 58 per cent of local people were classified as poor and a further quarter as extremely poor.

UNOPS administers, supervises and reports on disbursement of an IFAD loan of approximately $12.5 million to the Government of Azerbaijan, which is financing the rehabilitation of an irrigation area of approximately 30,000 hectares, and the capacity development of six water users’ associations that will manage the system. Other core activities include training local entrepreneurs and farmers in marketing and business development, and providing financial services to small-scale farmers and businesses.