The MARS programme will focus on combating poverty in more than 14 000 vulnerable families in rural areas both in Mauritius and Rodrigues. It is the third programme supported by IFAD and aims at supporting Government's pro-poor reform agenda and as well as improvements in management of marine resources. It will also provide assistance to reforming the sugar sector, including diversification of agricultural enterprises.

On that occasion, Dr. Rama Sithanen, underlined that in a country where per capita income is around USD 7000, the solutions to the scourge of absolute poverty are to be found mostly in creating opportunities and in addressing numerous factors that have a big role in driving people into poverty.

Mrs. Benhammouche, for her part, emphasised the need to ensure smooth and rapid implementation of the various MARS components which are crucial as the context is more serious and even more compelling due to the financial crisis affecting the world.

The target groups under the MARS programme include the poor, more specifically small scale fishers, octopus fisherwomen in Rodrigues, cane planters having difficulties to grow cane profitably, retrenched textile workers in rural areas, unemployed youth and women and inmates of the low-security prison farm. The key implementing agencies of the programme will be the Ministry of Agro-Industry, Food Production and Security, the Rodrigues Regional Assembly and the National Empowerment Foundation, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Empowerment.

It is recalled that IFAD assistance to Mauritius started as far back as 1981 and amounts to date to about USD 30 million. IFAD, a special agency of the United Nations, was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. IFAD is dedicated to eradicating rural poverty in developing countries.