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The increased frequency and severity of natural hazards and disasters, partly largely caused by climate change and variability, has adverse serious negative impacts on the agriculture sectors, threatening peoples’ lives and livelihoods as well as national economies.  To tackle this challenge, it is important to invest in disaster risk reduction measures that can both increase sustainable agricultural production and boost the resilience of current and future generations. Even in the absence of a disasters event, these investments can yield provide significant benefits, for example by encouraging households to protect existing  assets and build new ones, as well as by promoting entrepreneurship [...]

Widespread maize monocropping in Malawi exposes farmers to significant livelihood risk in the context of increasing climate variability. 36 percent of rural households grow maize in monocrop. These farmers are often poor and land constrained, and experience low levels of productivity and high production volatility. The effects of crop diversification on farm productivity and income volatility in Malawi varies across cropping systems. Maize in combination with legumes is the only crop system in Malawi that is significantly associated with an increase in productivity and a reduction in crop income volatility. Contrary to expectations, crop systems with 3 or more [...]

Spatial disconnect between cropping system diversification and climate risk. In Zambia, farmers residing in areas with low and medium rainfall risk are more likely to adopt diversified systems than farmers in areas with lower rainfall and greater rainfall variability. Lack of diversification in high risk regions poses a significant threat to livelihood resilience in those regions. Diverse cropping systems improve productivity and resilience. Increased level of diversification is associated to more stable crop income, when compared to maize monocropping. However, farmers facing land fragmentation, weakness of private input and output markets and uncertainty from the public policies are less likely [...]

This paper examines the impacts of the El Niño during the 2015/2016 season on maize productivity and income in rural Zambia. The analysis aims at identifying whether and how sustainable land management (SLM) practices and livelihood diversification strategies have contributed to moderate the impacts of such a weather shock. The analysis was conducted using a specifically designed survey called the El Niño Impact Assessment Survey (ENIAS), which is combined with the 2015 wave of the Rural Agricultural Livelihoods Surveys (RALS), as well as high resolution rainfall data from the Africa Rainfall Climatology version 2 (ARC2). This unique, integrated data set [...]

En Tchad, la vulnérabilité aux événements climatiques extrêmes est amplifiée par la faiblesse des structures administratives (ministères, organismes gouvernementaux et administrations locales), par le manque de ressources humaines et financières et le manque d'efficacité des capacités d’adaptation des ménages; les impacts des changements climatiques sont ressentis dans l'agriculture, l'élevage, la pêche, la santé, le logement ainsi que dans d’autres domaines. Compte tenu de ce contexte, renforcer la capacité de résilience de la population à des chocs récurrents tout en gardant à l'esprit l'hétérogénéité régionale est un élément clé qui doit être pris en compte dans les interventions de réduction de [...]

This Resource framework is intended as a guidance tool for stakeholders involved in programme design, implementation and monitoring of Home-Grown School Feeding Programmes and the related policy and institutional environment, including, inter alia: governments and development partners providing technical and financial assistance, as well as civil society, community based organisations and the private sector. It is a knowledge product that harmonizes the existing approaches and tools, and builds on the wealth of expertise and experience with home grown school feeding models i.e. those designed to provide children in schools with safe, diverse and nutritious food, sourced locally from smallholders, with [...]

The objective of this corporate Framework (the ‘Framework’) is to guide the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in carrying out its mandate in its areas of competence and comparative advantage, i.e. food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture, towards a more deliberate and transformative impact on sustaining peace. Following the April 2016 Security Council and General Assembly resolutions on peacebuilding, the concept “sustaining peace” encompasses activities aimed at preventing the outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict, including addressing root causes and moving towards recovery, reconstruction and development. The United Nations Secretary-General has called on all UN entities to [...]

Asia and the Pacific is experiencing major demographic shifts and urbanizing rapidly. E-agriculture technologies (remote sensing, drones, sensors) are emerging, with potentially profound implications for the entire food system and management of the natural resource base. Structural transformation of the economy has also changed the nature of the food security problem. Earlier, many governments thought that producing more staple food was sufficient to improve food security. However, today’s economy, increasingly based on human capital and less on physical strength, requires that policies and programmes promote healthy diets for healthy people. This need for improved nutrition will require shifts in agricultural [...]

Latin America and the Caribbean is falling short of the Sustainable Development Goal 1: Ending poverty. After two and a half decades of progress, poverty and extreme rural poverty increased by two percentage points each between 2014 and 2016. By 2017, there were an estimated 59 million poor and 27 million extreme poor in rural areas of the region. During the last 20 years, Latin America and the Caribbean has been at the forefront of global experiences in the reduction of rural poverty. The new regional context implies that the countries of the region must not only protect the progress made [...]

In many countries, pastoralism has historically been practiced in areas that are now partitioned by international boundaries. This is a major barrier to sustainable resource management and to pastoral development. However, there are examples from around the world of efforts to facilitate transboundary movements and transboundary ecosystem management by pastoralists. This report examines how pastoral mobility has been impacted by the creation of unnatural boundaries within their landscapes and how societies cope with these constraints through legal or informal arrangements. Also available in French.