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With trade recognized as a means of implementation under Agenda 2030, policy-makers will need to ensure that trade, and policies affecting trade and markets, are taken into consideration as part of their efforts to achieve SDG 2. The five targets that set out the level and ambition of SDG 2, as well as trade itself, often constitute distinct competing policy priorities for governments. It is therefore important that policy-makers identify and recognize areas in which difficult tradeoffs may be needed between competing policy objectives, and identify possible ways in which these can be addressed. Furthermore, while the different targets set [...]

There are 476 million indigenous peoples around the world, constituting 6.2 percent of the global population and, according to different sources, representing more than 19 percent of the extreme poor. Indigenous peoples are not a homogenous group. They live in over 90 countries, in rural and urban areas, in forests, savannahs, mountains, and along the coasts, in low, middle- and high-income countries. However, they all share a history of discrimination and marginalization that in the context of COVID-19 – once again – challenges their existence. This document provides a series of recommendations to governments on how to face COVID-19 impacts [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic has created supply and demand shocks in the food systems, disproportionately affecting the poor and nutritionally vulnerable groups. A possible economic slowdown further compounds challenges faced by governments in tackling malnutrition in all its forms.This brief presents policy and programmatic actions adopted by countries and development partners to ensure that food and agriculture responses promote healthy diets and improve nutrition. Furthermore, this brief explains supply and demand measures, taken from recent worldwide good practices. See the full list of policy briefs related to COVID-19

This policy brief aims to provide useful information for policymakers and other stakeholders in developing countries who are in the process of designing COVID-19 response programmes addressing the needs of agrifood and rural sectors through dedicated rural finance instruments and broader financial sector involvement. The brief discusses emerging patterns on how countries are currently responding to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. It looks at a number of innovations, good practices and policy options that emerge as most relevant for developing country contexts. See the full list of policy briefs related to COVID-19

Key findings of this report show that much progress has been made towards the goal of ending hunger. Yet, many countries continue to face moderate to high degrees of undernourishment, especially where economies made least progress in transitioning towards high-productivity, modern agriculture and non-farm economic development and where policy stances have been weak in promoting agricultural development, reducing gender inequalities, and improving infrastructure and basic social services. The decline in undernourishment has come with a rise in the prevalence in overweight and obesity. The spread of this form of malnutrition has come with dietary shifts towards the consumption of more animal-sourced [...]

This document was prepared within the framework of the FAO’s Strategic Objective 1 (SO1): Help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. This document served as a background paper to present the status of policy mainstreaming and policy research for the improvement of policy development in aquaculture in support of food security, nutrition and poverty eradication. The document was presented in various African fora and received the validation of the stakeholders for its publication as part of policy research. Specifically, the paper was presented and included the inputs from the Consultative Meeting on Aquaculture Policy Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 3 [...]

In recent decades, concerns have grown around the environmental impact of the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector, more specifically on the impact of agricultural activities on biodiversity. Since the introduction of the Aichi targets, released by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010, the United Nations have been empowered with greater influence on decision-making impacting biodiversity. The Biodiversity Integrated Assessment and Computation Tool (B-INTACT) uniquely seeks to provide a thorough biodiversity assessment of project-level activities in the AFOLU sector, taking on both a quantitative and a qualitative approach. Revised 4 June 2020: The name of the tool [...]

Biodiversity loss is accelerating at an unprecedented rate across the planet putting a great number of species on the brink of extinction. A decline in the plants, animals and micro-organisms threatens food security, sustainable development and the supply of vital ecosystem services. In order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, there is an urgent need to take action to halt biodiversity loss and consequently ecosystem degradation. Since the introduction of the Aichi targets, released by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010, the United Nations have been empowered with greater influence on decision-making impacting biodiversity. [...]

In light of the uncertainties surrounding the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, policy makers must ensure that national responses to the virus do not trigger a food crisis. The Covid-19 outbreak can shift the balance between food demand and supply, especially considering many countries having declared lockdowns and their borders closed. Countries at the highest risk of suffering from a potential food crisis sparked off from the pandemic, are those in Africa. The following note elucidates how the current Covid-19 pandemic is affecting food security in Africa and some key African value chains (i.e. rice, maize, cashew etc.). This note also offers [...]

Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. [...]