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Links to the publications, papers and articles on Foreign Direct Investment and Responsible Agricultural Investment.

Promoting higher involvement of women and youth in agricultural investment in Ghana. Two workshops organized in Ghana by the Economic and Social Development's Trade and Market Group shows that women and youth were seldom involved in the formulation, design or implementation of investments in agriculture and did not benefit from them. 

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets presents a universally accepted and comprehensive framework addressing all aspects and dimensions of sustainability. The integration of the climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approach with the implementation of the 2030 Agenda provides an opportunity to enhance the overall sustainability of CSA results and synergize CSA interventions with other sustainable development efforts.To achieve this integration, a clear understanding of how the CSA implementation process can engage with the 2030 Agenda throughout the five CSA implementation steps is required. Moreover, the interlinkages between CSA objectives and [...]

The main objective of this report is to review the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks, tools and guidance documents that are available for climate-smart agriculture (CSA), and in particular for objective (“pillar”) two on adaptation and resilience. The report is a literature review and does not propose a new methodology. It is not an exhaustive list, but summarises the main M&E frameworks. This report represents the first step towards the development of operational guidelines for the design and implementation of national M&E frameworks for CSA, to be developed during the first quarter of 2019. The envisioned operational guidelines will address [...]

In October 2019, the IsDB and FAO Regional Office for the Near East and North Africa partnered to deliver the first Regional Workshop on Climate-Smart Agriculture in the NENA region. The IsDB now aims to ensure that all their offices are aware of CSA and are able to make investments that meaningfully take CSA and its principles into account. In so doing, they aim to enhance the capacity of the agricultural systems to support food security, incorporating the need for adaptation and the potential for mitigation into sustainable agriculture development strategies. FAO is proud to bring the four-day training on [...]

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is recognized as critically important for tracking progress, whether it serves the purpose of accountability to donors, informs future improvements to CSA practices, or contributes to the aggregate global progress toward meeting the SDGs or the global stocktake under the Paris Agreement. There has been a growing chorus acknowledging the need to align the indicators and M&E frameworks of major donors with those of the three global agreements. Monitoring and reporting has begun on the SDGs, although the development of methodologies for various indicators is an evolving process. The development of specific indicators for the agriculture [...]

More than 70 million young people are unemployed worldwide and 160 million young workers are living in poverty. Rural youth and women, in particular, face significant obstacles in obtaining quality education and training. Many depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and face severe constraints without access to land, credit or markets. FAO has designed an integrated country approach to work with governments to design youth-inclusive agri-food development policies. Through capacity building, entrepreneurial support and investment promotion, countries can increase job opportunities in the agri-food system, boosting youth employment and ensuring a high-quality agricultural workforce.

The objective of the Assessment is to analyse the agriculture and rural sectors from a gender perspective at the macro level (policy), meso level (institutional) and micro level (community and household). The Assessment seeks to identify gender inequalities in access to critical productive resources, assets, services and opportunities. The assessment looks at the priorities, needs and constraints of both women and men in agricultural and rural communities, and the gaps that exist in responding to these issues. It also provides recommendations and guidance to promote gender sensitivity in future programmes and projects, and identifies possible partners for gender-related activities. This Assessment [...]

The way food systems have evolved over past decades means that they now face major risks, which in turn threaten the future of food systems themselves. Food systems have seriously contributed to climate change, environmental destruction, overexploitation of natural resources and pollution of air, water and soils. Despite the global average improvement in calorie production and major development of the food and agricultural product markets, huge inequalities in food access and repartition of the added value have emerged, leading to new serious nutritional and social problems. Based on a review of the most recent scientific knowledge, this report emphasizes Low-Income [...]

For centuries, fishing has been an activity of great importance for indigenous peoples. They inhabit and relate to water ecosystems, which conserve their cultural heritage, food sovereignty (the right to access healthy and culturally appropriate food) and in many cases are a main source of income. In Central America the situation is not different: today indigenous peoples live in more than 75% of the marine-coastal zones of the Caribbean Sea and extensive areas adjacent to continental waters and the Pacific Ocean, and have in fishing their main incomes. Precisely these areas present the highest indicators of poverty and malnutrition in [...]