Planting hope in remote communities, with Alvaro Lario - President of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

It doesn't seem like a typical approach to assistance.

I mean, you see people in need typically.

You go out and give them some know-how, some assistance, some tools, maybe some seeds, and then you go away.

This is an investment in self-reliance?

yes i would say probably in resilience self-reliance the ability you could argue at a very global level foods over an 80 but yeah it's it's about really creating that type of economic opportunities in remote areas which is much more complicated and also in the least developed countries and especially in fragile affected countries so one-third of our portfolio is currently in fragile affected countries so very direct situations remote areas and trying to create economic opportunities that can last when we are not there anymore.

And I think that's the most important part.

Many of our investment projects actually are six, seven years.

We are there with the communities, supporting them in a lot of the implementation and creating those conditions with the government, with the farmers' organizations.

So it's a model that actually can last when we are not there anymore.

The sustainability that many times we talk about is fundamental.

You mentioned that there are actual investors in this fund, so it's not just World Bank, IMF, because their raison d'etre is to invest to do good in the world.

It is actually making good business sense for pension funds?

Well, actually, I mean, with our credit rating, I mean that we are currently issuing what you could argue SDG bonds, blue bonds, green bonds, SDG bonds, women bonds, nutrition bonds.

So actually, you can very much target what you want.

All of those exist.

Yes, we have been issuing around a billion since we get the credit rating.

So it's a way for many of the pension funds also to invest for a purpose.

We have a financing framework where we show all of those impact measures and they can actually claim that those are real and they are supporting whether it's women, whether it's children.

nutrition, whether it's a certain SDG.

So I think that's the beauty of connecting actual global capital markets to this first mile.

And I think that's something that is quite unique within the UN.

And I think we are quite proud.

I mean, you mentioned that all of this opportunity, this kind of investment model is the reason that you decided to join the UN.

Yes, I mean, it was just for me a fantastic opportunity of making all of this happen.

Obviously, I was coming before from the private sector arm of the World Bank, private sector, academia, business school.