Dr. Kanayo Felix Nwanze has put in over 30 years of distinguished career in international agricultural development. After ten years tenure as Director-General of West African Rice Development Association (WARDA), he has been appointed Vice President of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). He trained as agricultural biologist and is a research expert in agricultural development. The first Nigerian to hold that position, he examines agricultural development worldwide, the role of IFAD in meeting MDGs in world's rural poor population and why some of these goals may not be achieved during the time frame targeted. He also took a look at Nigeria's efforts in reducing poverty in rural areas.

WHAT does your appointment as IFAD Vice President portend for rural agricultural development

My appointment is a recognition of my career in international agricultural development and research. To be with IFAD, for me, is also a privilege. IFAD was established in 1977 after the drought of the early 70s when the governments at that time, (the OECD countries, developing countries, OPEC countries) came together and put together an international financial institution with a mission to enable the rural poor overcome poverty. So IFAD is perhaps, the only international financial institution that is wholly dedicated to poverty reduction.

Today, IFAD works in rural communities, worldwide; in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. It does this through programs, working directly in projects that has to do with development, irrigation schemes, loans, development grants and assisting in individual projects. And essentially with the aim of overcoming poverty by working with rural communities in developing countries to eliminate hunger, malnutrition, raise productivity of the farming systems and improving their incomes and quality of their lives. Although it is aimed at agricultural development, it is in the context of rural development. It is the whole infrastructure of communities; the health systems, credit and loans for small communities, the farming systems.

I see my joining IFAD as an opportunity to bring into play the experiences I have gained in research as well as in project management, management of programs and people and my interaction with a wide network of development or donor partners, that is institutions that lend or grant loans. For Nigeria, in particular, IFAD is already engaged in programmes and projects.

Can you justify the nearly US$30billion spent by IFAD in its 30 years in existence in relation to persistent and worsening rural poverty.

It is good that you asked this question. The initial investment outlay in development programs and projects are usually very high. It is much later that you begin to measure their impact and return on investment and in agricultural research and development, we have a gestation period of at least ten to fifteen years before you begin to see the impact of investments in development. It is not the same as building a football stadium or building a road. But even then, IFAD assists in the development of infrastructure, investing in infrastructure in rural communities, small irrigation schemes, building roads, dispensing micro-credit worldwide. You may not immediately see the benefits accruing from these projects because how do you measure the benefits of cutting down the total time spent for a farmer to convey his produce within a- 10 kilometer distance if he had to walk through a bush path as against what it would cost in time and effort if there was a vehicle to ply that road because the community was assisted to build the road.

I think we should begin to look at specific projects and programmes to see to what extent it has impacted. A good case is the Unix Bank in Bangladesh; IFAD was the institution that provided first grant for that project. It received a prize for that project and the impact it has had in Bangladesh rural population and credit system is fantastic.

How do we solve Africa's food problems particularly our dependence on food imports. What accounted for NERICA's apparent failure to reduce our dependence on rice imports

You can take a horse to a stream but you cannot force it to drink water. The situation with agricultural development in Africa and Nigeria in particular is one that is very sad as far as I can see from my own experience. Before I go into specifics, development of any particular nation cannot come about through external aid alone. You can pump money into projects for years but until the particular nation and their governing structures and leadership and those who are supposed to implement take full responsibility for what could happen or could not happen.

Nigeria has gone through series of programmes towards food security. We had Operation Feed the Nation, we now have a presidential initiative on food security and so on so forth. Coming to rice, NERICA which my former institute, West African Rice Development Association was instrumental to its development and dissemination has the potential to rice importation drastically not only in Nigeria but in Africa as a whole. However, for it to succeed, you must have the right policies that will encourage farmers to produce. But having encouraged farmers to produce, you must also have the right market, the right infrastructure for moving the rice from the rural areas to the market. You must have prices that are sorts of incentive for farmers to produce.