Formed in 2007, Food Plant Solutions Rotary Action Group (FPS) creates science-based educational materials, which: identify highly nutritious local food plants, explain how to grow them in a sustainable, agroecological way, detail the nutritional value of the plants and describe why human bodies require those nutrients. The resources created by FPS allows people to better...

This short video describes the approach taken by FAO’s Early Warning Early Action (EWEA) to mitigate the impact of 2016/17 drought on pastoralist livelihoods and food security in Kenya. The benefits of acting early against drought in Kenya are illustrated through beneficiary stories and return on investment figures.

Charles Nyanjul describes the comparative advantages of forest and farm producer organizations that make them so well placed to fight hunger, poverty and climate change. Citing from the experience of the Farm and Forestry Smallholder Producers Association of Kenya, he cites how members are encouraged to grow fruit trees as...

Agriculture is the mainstay of the Kenyan economy and contributes over 45 percent of government revenue. The agricultural sector is the largest employer, representing 60 percent of total employment. Overall, approximately 80 percent of rural women are employed in agriculture. However, the percentage of agricultural land held by women remains...

A youth group called Mwelekeo Mpya, Kiswahili for New Direction, is indeed pushing young people in Nyamala village, Kilifi County, in a new direction. Here, youth are discovering that farming is not an outdated way of life. Amos Mkare and Dominic Mzungu are both 22 and high school graduates. They are...

Food insecurity and poor nutritional status remain widespread problems in the Horn of Africa (HOA). A multi-pronged nutrition-sensitive approach to development has been shown to be the best route for sustained reductions in undernutrition. One of the objectives of this report was to review Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) coordination...

More than twenty years ago, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations contributed to the growing recognition of the role of pollination in agricultural production, with the publication of “The Pollination of Cultivated Plants in the Tropics”. Since that time, the appreciation of pollinators has grown, alongside the...

More than twenty years ago, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations contributed to the growing recognition of the role of pollination in agricultural production, with the publication of “The Pollination of Cultivated Plants in the Tropics”. Since that time, the appreciation of pollinators has grown, alongside the...

Growing populations and consumption patterns are squeezing forests – especially through industrial agriculture. But many of the 1.5 billion people who live within the world’s remaining forest landscapes are farmers too, albeit smallholders. Many grow and protect trees. Most also hunt and gather from the forest. Forests provide them with...

As fish in Kenya’s Lake Victoria region becomes increasingly scarce, women fish traders in the region turn to fish farming to boost incomes and find a way out of the pernicious practice of jaboya

48-year-old Lucy Kigunda is a member of Ithondio women’s group in Imenti North, Meru County, in the central region of Kenya. More recently, she has started planting sorghum, a grass species cultivated for its grain – used for consumption, animal feed and ethanol production. Its steam can be used as...

Formed in 2007, Food Plant Solutions Rotary Action Group (FPS) creates science-based educational materials, which: identify highly nutritious local food plants, explain how to grow them in a sustainable, agroecological way, detail the nutritional value of the plants and describe why human bodies require those nutrients. The resources created by FPS allows people to better...

As part of FAO’s Blue Growth Initiative (BGI) the FAO Member Countries of the Eastern Africa Sub-Region met to agree on a strategy for the Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture within the Blue Growth Initiative in Eastern Africa (BGI Strategy). The BGI is an FAO flagship initiative that aims at...

Fisherfolk use their social networks to navigate formal and informal rules in accessing the fisheries of Lake Victoria

For over 40 years, natural hazards (mainly droughts, floods and landslides) have affected millions of people in the eastern Africa sub-region. The impact of these hazards have been high, continue to rise in frequency and are mostly felt in the agriculture and food sectors. In some other countries of the...

Well-designed dairy development programmes can improve the income and nutrition of poor households, as well as providing decent employment in milk processing and marketing. A review of evidence on the importance of livestock for women argued that despite two-thirds of the world's poor livestock keepers being women, little research has...

La consommation de produits certifiés n'est plus l'apanage des pays développés. Au Kenya, les premiers marchés biologiques sont apparus à Nairobi en 2006. Ils sont approvisionnés par des maraîchers, confrontés à une diversité de défis : construire une certification biologique crédible, garantir la fraîcheur des produits et composer avec l'hétérogénéité...

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) wholeheartedly applauds an historic judgment from the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights in Arusha today in favour of the Ogiek community of Kenya. Following an eight-year legal battle, the Court found that the Kenyan government violated seven separate articles of the African Charter in a land rights...

The present study focuses on dairy cooperatives in Kenya and Morocco, to explore how and to what extent the institutional environment has been enabling the development and performance of the cooperatives. The focus on dairy generates insights that are relevant for many countries, because it is a sector in which...

This report synthesizes the analysis and findings of a set of seven country impact evaluation studies that explore the impact of cash transfer programmes on household economic decision-making, productive activities and labour allocation in sub-Saharan Africa. The seven countries are Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Results from...