ROME, 18 June. - (ANA) . A new report reveals that 2025 was a strong year for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)’s sustainable bond programme, which issued an additional US$340 million in bonds that are channeling private investments into long-term rural transformation around the world. Strong investor demand for IFAD bonds enabled the Fund to meet its 2025 borrowing targets ahead of schedule.

 

Between 2022 and 2025, IFAD has issued a total of US$985 million in sustainable bonds that are financing projects expected to reach more than 26 million rural people across 29 countries within the next decade, according to the Fund’s 2025 Impact Report released today.

 

The projects funded by IFAD sustainable bonds span a wide range of investments that are strengthening rural populations’ access to markets, restoring and maintaining natural resources, developing inclusive rural finance, creating an enabling environment for rural development through policy and institutional support, improving agricultural production and mitigating post-harvest losses.

 

“Since its launch in 2022, IFAD’s sustainable bonds programme has connected impact investors with small-scale farmers to drive economic opportunity, resilience and food security in rural communities,” said Diane Menville, Associate Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer at IFAD. “The programme’s scale up reflects investors’ confidence in IFAD’s ability to deliver lasting impact for rural people and the planet.”

 

In 2025, IFAD’s AA+ credit rating was revised from “stable” to “positive outlook” by S&P and reaffirmed by Fitch as stable, showing confidence in IFAD’s strengthened governance, diversified funding base and sound capital management, which together underpin IFAD’s capacity to deliver impact at scale.

 

More than 4 million people are already participating in projects that provide business or financial services, access to markets and construct or rehabilitate water infrastructure. This also includes nearly 370,000 rural producers who have received agricultural inputs or new technologies.  In addition, smallholder farmers have adopted climate-resilient practices across more than 815,000 hectares of land - an area roughly equivalent to the size of Cyprus. IFAD sustainable bonds have also financed an increasing number of nutrition-sensitive projects, fulfilling the Fund’s commitment to integrate nutrition across at least 60 per cent of its project portfolio.

 

The sustainable bonds are issued through private placements to a diverse and growing community of partners, including French, German, Japanese, Moroccan and Swedish investors representing pension funds to central banks.

 

As the only United Nations fund authorized to issue sustainable bonds on capital markets, and with its unique mandate to invest in rural communities, IFAD is at the forefront of innovative, market-based development finance solutions that transform the lives of rural people and the rural economies where they live.

 

IFAD’s sustainable bond programme is central to the Fund’s recently launched fourteenth replenishment – IFAD 14 – which positions private sector investment and innovation as key drivers of stronger markets, productive rural jobs, and resilient communities.

 

IFAD is currently implementing more than 180 programmes in over 80 countries, reaching over 95.6 million rural people.

 

With nearly 80 per cent of the world’s poorest people living in rural areas, and small-scale farmers producing one third of the world’s food, strategic investments in the first mile of food systems deliver strong economic and social returns. Recent impact analysis shows that IFAD-financed projects increased farmers' production, income and market access by more than one third.   -  (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/18 June 2026 - - -