Cabinet Passes Motion on IFAD Accession
The Cabinet approved the Charter of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) on December 8, and authorized the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to proceed with a membership application.
The 167-member, Rome-based IFAD is considered to be one of the most efficient UN agencies in the field of eradicating poverty in the rural areas of developing countries, the Cabinet said in a press release. Accession to the agency was also one of the objectives mentioned in the 2011 to 2015 Strategy for Estonian Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid.
Becoming a donor member of IFAD would open for Estonia another trusted and helpful channel to distribute development aid, as well as new opportunities for working with other donor and developing countries. Estonia would also be the first of the Baltic nations to become a member of the agency, the Cabinet press office said.
The Ministry of Agriculture has earmarked 45,000 euros from its next year's budget as an initial contribution to IFAD. The weight of each member country's vote is tied to the size of its membership fee.
After membership approval from the IFAD executive board, the charter will go to Parliament for ratification.
Erkki Sivonen