Rome, 26 February 2026. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Kingdom of Tonga signed a US$5.3 million financing agreement for the Tonga Rural Innovation Project – Phase III (TRIP III) last week. This ambitious six-year initiative aims to strengthen resilience to climate shocks and natural disasters for about 35,000 people, representing over one-third of the country’s population.
“We are moving beyond local development to confront the defining challenges of our time – from climate change and eroding biodiversity to rural youth unemployment – to ensure rural communities cannot just withstand future shocks, but also thrive,” said Reehana Raza, IFAD Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific. “TRIP III is a testament to IFAD and Tonga’s shared commitment to building long-term resilience by fostering productive crops and expanding economic opportunities for rural people”.
Building on two earlier phases, TRIP III aims to improve livelihoods and food security by promoting diversified agricultural crop production, climate-resilient practices and fostering social inclusion. Fully aligned with the national Tonga Agriculture Sector Plan II, the project will invest in community and cluster farming, enabling farmers to pool resources such as land, inputs, and productive tools for more efficient and cost‑effective production. It will also connect small-scale farmers and rural communities to domestic and export markets and create on- and off-farm job opportunities for young people between 2026 and 2031.
The project will address eroding biodiversity, climate change, and high rural youth unemployment by setting up an innovation facility, among other measures, that would enable participants, especially youth, to test and scale up sustainable solutions such as mechanisation services, greenhouses and drip irrigation, digital applications, value addition and waste utilisation.
“TRIP III is designed to deepen our impact. We are committed to securing Tonga’s food and nutrition security by integrating climate-resilient practices into the very heart of rural community life,” said Candra Samekto, IFAD Country Director for the Pacific Islands.
Of the total project cost, IFAD will provide a grant of US$5.3 million while domestic and international partners will contribute an additional US$10.16 million.
Tonga, an archipelago of 170 islands, faces unique developmental challenges. The main island of Tongatapu houses most of the population, while residents of the outer islands often struggle with limited access to technology, infrastructure, and markets. Small-scale farmers are highly vulnerable to frequent natural disasters, climate variability, and the economic shocks of events like the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption, which contributed to a decline in real GDP of almost 6 per cent in 2021 and 2022.
TRIP III is the sixth project in a successful US$33 million portfolio of IFAD-financed rural development projects in Tonga. The previous phase, TRIP II, which ended in 2025, significantly improved rural livelihoods, reaching nearly double the targeted population, over half of whom were women. It institutionalized bottom-up planning by equipping communities with tools to develop their own plans, depending on their specific needs – an approach that is recognized as a leading example of decentralised community-based development in the Pacific Islands. Community gardens and cluster farms supported by the project led to increased production and marketable surpluses, generating strong returns with cluster farming profits reaching TOP 242 million (around US$104 million).
READ MORE: https://www.ifad.org/en/w/news/ifad-and-tonga-sign-new-initiative-to-bolster-climate-resilience-and-rural-livelihoods
