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The COVID-19 pandemic has affected nearly every rural household, with particularly serious effects on the most vulnerable. Mobility restrictions have disrupted livelihoods, while the economic downturn has pushed disadvantaged and vulnerable groups deeper into poverty, creating “new poor” and exacerbating gender and social inequalities. Women and girls have been disproportionally affected, due to existing gender inequalities, including inequitable access to and control over resources and services. School closures, elderly care and overwhelmed health services have increased the demands on women for unpaid care work. Across Europe and Central Asia, the time women spend on unpaid care and domestic work has [...]

South-South Cooperation (SSC) is the mutual sharing and exchange of development solutions between developing countries, including knowledge, experiences and good practices, policies, technology, and resources.The project in Uganda (Phases I and II) under the FAO-China SSC is among the Programme’s longest and most successful collaborations. Here, you can read the personal stories of some of the project participants, beneficiaries, and stakeholders. Their stories highlight the personal and community-level effects that the project has created. Their stories will also demonstrate the successes and positive impact of the project in their personal and professional lives while bringing to light the persistent challenges [...]

Even though substantial progress has been achieved worldwide in reducing both poverty and malnutrition, much is yet to be done. There are signs that the progress made in both dimensions has stalled in recent years.Poor-quality diets have become a major driver for overweight and obesity and associated non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases, and some types of cancers. Conflict and climate vulnerability have been identified as major obstacles to reaching Sustainable Development Goal targets related to malnutrition by 2030. In 2019, economic downturns and slowdowns hindered efforts even further. More recently, the COVID-19 crisis has imposed even harsher conditions [...]

This curriculum consists of 17 sessions, covering themes from community forestry establishment to policy and regulatory support. The main objectives of this curriculum are to:- understand the role of forests in climate change mitigation; - have a better understanding on community forestry and community forestry instructions; - realize the importance of stakeholders’ participation and their roles in the establishment of community forestry Also available in Burmese.

Rwanda’s agricultural sector accounts for about 29 percent of GDP and employs about 72 percent of the population that is economically active. It is still the dominant source of income for the majority of the poor who live in rural areas and is of significant importance in achieving the national priority objectives of sustainable economic growth, food security, and poverty alleviation.The report provides quantitative evidence on how the Government of Rwanda’s policies and expenditure decisions have supported its food and agriculture sector over the past decade. More, in particular, it provides information on the extent to which producers of key [...]

This policy brief highlights SponGES project findings that are relevant to policymakers and fisheries managers. It provides an overview of the tools that are increasingly being used to build knowledge on where deep-sea sponges occur, their quantity and quality, and the role they play in the larger ocean ecosystem in order to enhance their protection, management, and conservation against anthropogenic pressures.

FAO Project GCP /SFS/004/EC. The overall objective of the STOSAR project is to accelerate progress towards implementation of the SDAC regional integration, which focuses on: i. enhancing information on agricultural production, sustainability and competitiveness for evidence-based decision-making; and, ii. improving access to markets through implementation of plant and animal pest and disease control strategies at the regional level.

This document summarizes the online discussion Near-real-time monitoring of food crisis risk factors for improved early warning early action, held at the FAO Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum) from 16 September to 18 October 2020. The discussion was facilitated by Betina Dimaranan of the Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).This online discussion followed up on a recent Food Security Portal webinar that took stock of the advances in tools and approaches for real-time monitoring of food crisis risk factors in early warning early action systems. The discussion was one [...]

By analyzing agri-food value chains, policy makers and researchers are able to better understand how economic, social and environmental dimensions are intertwined. This is an important step, which allows for identification of areas for potential improvement along an agri-food value chain. EX-ACT Value Chain (EX-ACT VC) is derived from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) EX-Ante Carbon-balance Tool (EX-ACT). The tool is based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodology to account for GHG emissions of primary agricultural production, augmented with methodologies from peer reviewed literature to cover the remaining sectors and actors in [...]

This action sheet is part of a series of action sheets developed under the seven key priority areas of the FAO COVID-19 Response and Recovery programme, the FAO umbrella programme designed to proactively and sustainably address the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic. Each action sheet includes a project proposal in support of countries most in need for which FAO is leveraging high-level political, financial and technical expertise. All action sheets are gathered on the Food Coalition web hub, where members of the Coalition - a multi-stakeholder global alliance for a unified global action in response to COVID-19 - can access the [...]