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Aquaculture governance is the set of processes by which a jurisdiction manages its resources with respect to aquaculture, how its stakeholders participate in making and implementing decisions affecting the sector, how government personnel are accountable to the aquaculture community and other stakeholders, and how the respect of the rule of law is applied and enforced. Good governance of aquaculture is a necessary condition for the sector to fully realize its potential for growth. Good governance will also ensure the order and sustainability of this growth. The present technical guidelines on “aquaculture governance and sector development” have been produced to support [...]

Strong market interventions and regulations of agricultural products have been part of the import substitution strategy implemented by the previous government until 2015, when the new administration reversed it by opening the market. Throughout the review period (2007-2017), the country prioritized social spending through various programmes, all of which were sustained by the new administration.

During the period 2007-2017, Nigeria’s agriculture sector has undergone major reforms. The introduction of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) reformed the input delivery system, strengthened famers’ resilience to shocks and enhanced agricultural credit. In 2016, the government launched the Social Investment programme which aims at strengthening school feeding, conditional cash transfers and food bio-fortification programmes. 

During the period 2007-2016, the government’s main policies for the agricultural sector have focused on increasing domestic rice production, reforming the cotton sector and maintaining input subsidies programmes. With regards to consumer policies, the main forms of assistance include food distribution, food sales at subsidized prices, and ad hoc measures to stabilize food prices such as the closure of the border for food exports or the waiver of import duties on imported foods.

In recent years, government's investments in agriculture have focused on increasing land under irrigation, subsidizing inputs, strengthening the agricultural extension service and reforming agricultural sector institutions through the privatization of a number of parastatals. Although agriculture represents the largest contributor to Kenya's GDP, the allocation of public expenditure to the sector has remained below the five percent over the past decade.

Indonesia has charted impressive economic growth since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. The national top priority is becoming self-sufficient in rice, maize, soybeans, sugar and beef. To achieve this, the Government is providing farmers with significant market price support, fertilizer subsidies and setting import restrictions. Social protection is being strenghtened through the consolidation of the RASKIN programme, the introduction of nutrition and cash transfer programmes and the substitution of fuel subsidies For more country policy briefs by FAPDA please see here.

This study offers a framework to better understand how addressing the specific priorities of men and women in nutrition and food interventions in conflict-affected contexts may shape peacebuilding processes and improve gender equality in the aftermath of violent conflicts.

FAO, in partnership with the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, is developing an interactive learning tool to facilitate learning on the potential benefits and trade-offs in linking social protection, resilience and climate change policies at local, national and global level. The tool allows national stakeholders and policymakers to experience first-hand the challenges that smallholder farmers face when dealing with scarce availability of productive assets and deteriorating climate conditions. This will help participants be better equipped to solve complex problems related to social protection, climate change issues and resilience in an uncertain world. The tool capture the essence of real-life [...]

By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Should we thus be more concerned with urban development? On the contrary, we should still focus on rural development, as this will remain critical to ensuring food security and eliminating poverty. With the ongoing demographic change, however, successful rural development will need to heavily rely on strong linkages between rural and urban economies. See the complete series here.

As urban food markets have grown rapidly in recent decades, so too have rural–urban food supply chains. Urbanization and higher incomes are shifting dietary patterns away from staples and towards higher-value products (fish, meat, eggs, dairy products, fruits and vegetables, and more processed foods), thus driving transformations upstream in the food system. See the complete series here.