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This policy brief emphasizes the critical importance of leveraging domestic resources and effectively reallocating subsidies to amplify their efficacy in addressing food crises and fostering the transformation of agricultural food systems. By strategically directing resources within national economies and optimizing existing subsidy frameworks, governments can significantly enhance their capacity to prevent and mitigate food crises while simultaneously advancing sustainable agricultural practices. This approach not only ensures the efficient utilization of available funds but also promotes greater resilience and long-term viability within the agricultural sector.

Strengthening agricultural producer organizations (POs) and cooperatives has been recognized as a key way forward to support farmers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) and, in turn, promote food security, income generation and private sector development. Agriculture in the WBGS is characterized by smallholdings; there are just over 110 000 of these, and 90 percent are classified as small or medium-sized. The annual report on states that have limited or absent governance capability and are vulnerable to conflict or collapse. Yet, few would deny the extreme fragility of the WBGS given the conflict situation, a deadlocked political process [...]

Este es el Folleto Marco de la FAO: El foco en la gobernanza para un apoyo normativo y técnico más efectivo https://www.fao.org/3/cc0240es/cc0240es.pdf Quedan ocho años para alcanzar los ODS. Urge transformar los sistemas agroalimentarios para conseguir sostenibilidad, resiliencia, seguridad alimentaria y nutrición en un mundo que ha dejado atrás la COVID. Esta transformación solo se puede lograr reforzando y aprovechando los conocimientos, la experiencia, las aptitudes y las capacidades de acción colectiva de una gran diversidad de agentes del sector público y del privado. Cada uno de ellos tiene intereses, necesidades, recursos, influencias y capacidades característicos. Gobernanza es el nombre que [...]

Extending the coverage of social insurance schemes to rural areas of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is challenging because of high administrative costs and a lack of necessary capacity. As a result agriculture workers tend to be left out of these schemes. This research report aims to understand the main administrative barriers and capacity constraints that may hinder the coverage of agriculture workers in social insurance schemes, and suggest possible strategies that could be considered to address them. Also available in Arabic

This paper examines the distributional impacts of agricultural policies versus those of cash transfers using a tax–benefit microsimulation model for Zambia for the policy year 2020. The analysis also considers the behavioural impacts of input subsidies and social cash transfers. The results indicate that Zambian agricultural policies reduce headcount poverty by 3–5 percentage points, depending on whether only their direct impacts or also behavioural impacts that lead to changes in agricultural production are taken into account. The paper also considers policy reforms where the goal is to achieve similar, or even greater, poverty reduction with smaller government net expenditure. The results [...]

The In Brief version of the FAO flagship publication, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022, contains the key messages and main points from the publication and is aimed at the media, policy makers and a more general public.The following complementary information is available:See the interactive storyRead the full report

This year’s report should dispel any lingering doubts that the world is moving backwards in its efforts to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. We are now only eight years away from 2030, but the distance to reach many of the SDG 2 targets is growing wider each year. There are indeed efforts to make progress towards SDG 2, yet they are proving insufficient in the face of a more challenging and uncertain context. The intensification of the major drivers behind recent food insecurity and malnutrition trends (i.e. conflict, climate extremes and economic shocks) combined with [...]

This investment brief highlights the importance of youth as change agents and key stakeholders contributing to sustainable agrifood systems. It provides an overview of the Investment guidelines for youth in agrifood systems in Africa developed jointly by FAO and the African Union Commission through a multi-stakeholder and participatory process. The guidelines aim to accelerate investments in and by youth in agrifood systems by providing practical guidance, including tools and examples, to design, develop, implement, monitor and evaluate youth-focused and youth-sensitive investment programmes and to engage youth fully as partners throughout the entire process. The brief calls for wide dissemination of [...]

The overarching objective of this report was to determine, from current evidence and experiences from the region, a view of co-management application and performance. Among the findings of the review are: (1) Co-management is associated with positive trends across a range of social, ecological and governance indicators; (2) While overall trends in co-management performance are positive, between years the outcomes experienced by fishers and community members vary substantially between positive experiences and improvements and negative experiences and declines; (3) There is substantial variation in the systems to which co-management is applied and the degrees of inclusion, agency, influence and authority of [...]

This brochure provides an overview of FAO’s work in forced displacement contexts. It highlights key approaches to forced displacement programming and policy, including tailored approaches to partnership and data and evidence, with a view to achieving durable solutions to forced displacement for both displaced and host communities. Examples of FAO’s work in a number of forced displacement contexts are explored, emphasizing the crucial role it is playing in protecting and rebuilding livelihoods, strengthening food security and nutrition, enhancing self-reliance and fostering inclusion, gender equality and social cohesion at a community level.