Thirty million people a year should have been released from poverty for the 2015 target to be met. But, says IFAD, the figure is no more than 10 million a year, a rate of progress that makes the target unattainable. Since 75 per cent of extreme poverty occurs in rural areas, IFAD says that the whole question be looked at in the context of the rural world. When rural families have land and secure control over that land, they are likely to grow more food and see their incomes rise. And extreme land inequality leaves the poor with few options in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, north-east Brazil, and parts of India and the Philippines.
Land owners are quite pleased with the project.
It pays for their land in cash rather than in 20-year bonds. It allows them to negotiate the price of the land and to determine which plots to sell. This, he says, is because of the failure of previous programmes, growing political pressure from developing nations and protests by ordinary people.