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The Agricultural Outlook 2020-2029 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. It brings together the commodity, policy and country expertise of both organisations as well as input from collaborating member countries to provide an annual assessment of the prospects for the coming decade of national, regional and global agricultural commodity markets. This year's edition features a short scenario on COVID-19 and its impact on food and agriculture.

The number of Dimitra Clubs in sub-Saharan Africa has reached 3 000, marking a milestone. This gender-transformative approach aimed at rural people’s empowerment through community mobilization has proved increasingly successful.Through this flexible approach developed by FAO, the rural communities themselves, through their decisions and actions, determine the changes that need to be made to their environment, and how to improve their livelihoods.The Dimitra Clubs’ areas of impact are many and varied. Several themes shape this special edition of the newsletter: community mobilization, gender and women’s leadership, food security and nutrition, social cohesion and peace, adaptation to climate change, rural organizations, [...]

COVID-19 pandemic has put local food systems at risk of disruptions along the entire agri-food value chain. Cities and local governments are currently playing a major role in limiting the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and in mitigating disruptions to their local food systems.To better understand the situation, FAO has been closely monitoring local food system status and prevailing practices during COVID-19, collecting information and insights from different cities on key challenges and specific responses through various channels.The insights, data and cases presented in this paper highlight the role of local food production and value chains in enhancing [...]

As the world population continues to rise, new ways are needed to sustainably increase agricultural production, improve supply chains, reduce food losses and waste, and ensure access to nutritious food for all at all times.This brochure includes the contribution of genetic resources for food and agriculture to food security and to the achievement of relevant sustainable development goals. Available in following languages: Arabic, French, Mandarin, Spanish and Russian.

FAO’s Investment Centre provides a wide range of investment support services to developing and transition countries. This third annual review shines a light on the work of the Investment Centre and its partners - the international financing institutions - carried out in 2019 to increase the volume and quality of investments in food security, nutrition, agriculture and rural development. During that year, the Centre supported investment-related policy studies and processes to increase policy dialogue and contributed to the design, technical assistance, supervision or evaluation of investment projects in 133 countries. It increasingly linked both its policy work with investment support to [...]

The Maghreb's oases systems provide a major contribution to the region's food security, economy and protection of natural resources and play an essential role in the settlement of populations through job creation. Despite this potential, oasis ecosystems are threatened by a range of complex factors related to the expansion of agricultural land, increasing scarcity of water resources and competition for water. The project “Adaptive management and monitoring of the Maghreb's oases systems", implemented by FAO in Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania from May 2016 to December 2019, brought together several key stakeholders from these three oasis countries, in order to address [...]

More than 820 million people in the world were hungry in 2018 (FAO, 2019). In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there were 239 million undernourished people, with a prevalence of 22.8 percent as measured by the Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU), a Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) indicator. The target is to bring this prevalence to zero by 2030 (Ritchie et al., 2018). According to the latest Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), 9.2 percent of the world’s population (or more than 700 million people) were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity in 2018, with Africa having the highest level of 27 [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound negative effect on the global economy and is occurring in the context of a rapidly changing climate. This year is expected to be the second hottest in recorded history. Weather forecasts for 2020 indicate a high probability that extreme weather will adversely affect food production in many countries. This brief draws on historical evidence and demonstrates that reductions in national food availability caused by severe weather events tend to be considerably larger in magnitude when they occur during global economic downturns. The risks posed by this dual threat are particularly high for poorer countries [...]

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 situation report is a consolidation of information on food system disruptions in Africa due to COVID-19 for the period of 1–15 July 2020. As a collaboration between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the University of Minnesota – Strategic Partnerships and Research Collaborative, the information in this report is collected by scanning and analyzing public, open-source information. See the full list of policy briefs related to COVID-19