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Inland waterway management is complex and faces unique challenges as inland waterways have a variety of users. The mixture and overlap of local, regional, national and at times international regulations exacerbate the problem of managing inland waterways. In this context, the regional conference ‘River habitat restoration for inland fisheries in the Danube River basin and adjacent Black Sea areas’ was held on 13-15 November 2018 in Bucharest, Romania. This event was organised by the FAO Regional office for Europe and Central Asia in partnership with the International Organisation for the Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Europe (EUROFISH) and EIFAAC [...]

The high cost to Ecuador’s national budget of maintaining a minimum guaranteed producer price for rice led to the introduction of a price bracket system in 2017. The minimum support price policy and a complimentary high import tariff were meant to protect small rice producers from competition from world markets and increase their incomes. However, farmers with greater productive capacity are currently accruing the highest income transfers from the guaranteed minimum rice price. Moreover, the policy has led to distortions throughout the marketing chain, only partially meeting its objective of price stability. The introduction of the price bracket system and [...]

This methodology, developed by FAO in the framework of the SAVE FOOD global initiative on food loss and waste reduction, is at the basis of many reports undertaken to analyze critical loss points along the different food value chains and identify feasible food loss reduction solutions and strategies.   

The Platform facilitates local, national and regional level food loss and waste prevention, reduction and measurement. It achieves this by ensuring information sharing and in-depth discussion. It builds on and complements existing initiatives such as the FAO Global Initiative on FLW; the private sector “SAVE FOOD” programme; the Community of Practice on Food Loss (FL) Reduction; the Food Loss and Waste Protocol and Standard; and IFPRI’s Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) CGIAR Research Program, which includes an initiative on FLW under the Value Chain Flagship.  

FAO’s Investment Centre provides a wide range of investment support services to developing and transition countries. This second annual review shines a light on the work of the Investment Centre and its partners –the international financing institutions - carried out in 2018 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 116 countries. It increasingly linked both its policy work with investment support to [...]

The Arab region needs a new generation of policies and investments in agricultural water. Agricultural water management has always posed challenges and opportunities in the Arab world. However, unprecedented and accelerating drivers such as climate change, population growth, and land degradation make agricultural water management a more urgent priority than ever before. In addition, as part of the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, Arab countries have committed to work towards an ambitious set of development targets, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unless the right policies and investments are put in place, it will be difficult to achieve the SDGs, [...]

Strategic investments in the agriculture sector are a catalyst for sustainable, economic growth and poverty reduction.  Through their partnership, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have produced this comprehensive study on the State of Agriculture in the Caribbean, drawing upon decades of research on the many drivers of change affecting the CDB’s Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs), including international trade, institutional policies, and climate change. This report follows forty years of structural change in the agriculture sector of BMCs, and can support the development of an updated Agriculture Sector Strategy, by identifying [...]

This document includes critical information on the policy design and implementation process. Its purpose is to describe the content of the standard, elements of the policy and the main questions arising from different sectors, during the process of drafting the law and legislative procedure, as well as during the policy design and implementation of the standard. Likewise, it aims to present the challenges and the factors that allowed progress in its implementation. The main audience for this paper will be decision-makers, parliamentarians, high-level officials from ministries, and civil society institutions.  Also available in Spanish.

This synthesis report for the regional workshop for Africa on "A new approach for mainstreaming Sustainable Food and Agriculture in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals" provides an overview of the presentations, a brief report on the discussions, and summaries of the conclusions. 

The Government of Fiji has identified action on nutrition and on diet-related Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) as a policy priority. The population of Fiji is experiencing a triple burden of malnutrition, due to the rapid dietary transition of the past 5 decades. Consumption of healthy traditional foods such as fish and seafood, staple root crops, coconuts and wild plants has decreased, while consumption of cereals and refined sugar has increased dramatically.  A significant contributor to high salt, sugar and fat intakes are discretionary foods, such as confectionary, snacks and sweet beverages. These foods contribute an average of only 9 percent of daily [...]