The Conference builds on the political momentum gathered at the Climate Change Summit in Paris, December 2015, where world leaders renewed their commitment to the Great Green Wall initiative, pledging USD 4 billion over the next 5 years for the restoration of Africa’s landscapes. During the Conference, partners will define a roadmap for...

Dryland areas cover more than half of sub-Saharan Africa and are home to nearly 50 percent of its populations, who depend on agriculture (including livestock, crops and fisheries) as their main livelihood strategy. Sporadic and irregular rainfall patterns are the most important environmental driver for these regions and water, in...

In the last two decades, food security policy in Malawi has focused on enhancing the maize productivity of smallholder farmers, primarily through the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) (Chirwa and Dorward 2013). While this has raised maize yields, production shocks, such as droughts and floods, continue to result in wide-spread...

Women have always had an important role in Eritrean society. During the struggle for independence they helped transform Eritrean society, and today rural women contribute substantially to the agriculture sector and provide income for their households. Like women around the world and especially those in developing countries, the women in...

Malawi is a small country located in southern Africa with only 119,000 km2 for a population of about 16.7 million people. With agriculture as the mainstay of the economy, Malawi’s high population density of 140 people/km2 requires that agricultural productivity and other ecosystem services must be optimized. As part of...

Water is precious in Eritrea, where farmers have to cope with droughts and crop failures. With support from the government and an IFAD-funded project, farmers and herders are expanding spate irrigation, an ancient form of water management. By harnessing floodwaters and collecting run-off, farmers can provide enough water for the...

This paper uses panel data on 46 African countries from 2001 to 2014 to estimate the impacts of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), an agriculture-led integrated framework of development priorities in Africa, on agricultural expenditure and productivity, income, and nutrition. A difference-in-difference treatment-effects model (based on when a...

The ten-year efforts of the Kaydara Agroecology School Farm, in Senegal, led to concrete benefits for the community and for the environment. Gora Ndiaye, founder of the "African Gardens" association, summarizes the some important features of the project.

Agriculture and social protection are fundamentally linked in the context of rural livelihoods in Africa. Poor and food-insecure families depend primarily on agriculture and partly on non-farm income and private transfers for their livelihoods, and are the main target of social protection interventions (FAO, 2015a). When embedded within a broader...

Cattle of the Sudanese Hamerenya breed have some special qualities, including docility and a high milk yield. Through an IFAD-supported programme, farmers in the Adi Quala subdistrict in Eritrea were able to take out small loans to invest in the purchase of Hamerenya cattle. The programme also helps the farmers...

Produit dans le cadre du projet Mécanismes de reddition des comptes dans la gouvernance foncière, ce rapport examine la redevabilité dans les transactions foncières au Sénégal. Il passe au crible le cadre juridique national qui régit les investissements fonciers et explore les occasions de reddition de comptes et la manière dont...

East Africa could be the lucky exception to the disastrous effects of climate change as scientists predict increased precipitation as temperatures rise. Scientists working with the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) — Kizito Kwena, William Ndegwa, Imad Ali-Babiker and Hezron Mogaka— say the flipside...

For over a decade, CIAT has tested agronomic and soil management practices in Western Kenya. From minimum tillage to integrated soil fertility management, two trials, established in 2003, are the most comprehensive picture of tropical soil health in Kenya. What these trials allow us to do is show-case changes in soil...

African countries need to focus on enhancing their adaptive capacities and reduce their vulnerability to climate change. Translating that momentum quickly into the agriculture sectors, neglected in the Paris Agreement, should be central to a holistic and comprehensive transformation of African economies.

Despite continuous positive economic growth at an average of 5% per year, Africa needs accelerated economic development if it is to cope with the increasing demands for food, water and energy challenged by a rapidly growing population, rapid urbanisation and climate change. The pressure on African countries to boost productivity...

An analysis of the various constraints highlights issues of isolation, value chain weaknesses and low stakeholder capacity. In addition, low infrastructure development, with structurally high costs affect the competitiveness of all sectors of the economy. This situation prompted the Bank to finance the Infrastructure Rehabilitation for Food Security Support Project...

ASARECA and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are undertaking a joint initiative to explore innovative, spatial and cost-effective data collection methods to monitor the adoption and diffusion of agricultural technologies.  Simply put, the project: “Monitoring the Geospatial Diffusion of Agricultural Technologies”, is expected to generate data, knowledge and...

Stakeholders have committed to a robust plan of institutionalizing conservation agriculture in Kenya.  This will be achieved through interventions on commercialization, promotion of large scale adoption at national level and making agriculture attractive to the youth, especially as a form of employment. The two day First National Conservation Agriculture Conference...

The article shares some of the most compelling insights from a four days Learning Exchange gathering in Uganda, facilitated by the AgroEcology Fund and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa. The meeting brought together grassroot organizers, advocates and donors to discuss, learn and come up with new successful strategies for...

Milk spoils because of germs that are too small to see. The germs grow in the milk and spoil it. Germs multiply faster in warm milk than in cold milk. So move the milk to the collection centre within 30 minutes of milking, or the milk will start to spoil....