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This document includes eight studies showcasing good practices in support of sustainable small-scale fisheries. FAO commissioned these studies aiming to share experiences and promote the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines). The case studies were also intended to promote participatory approaches – in line with the SSF Guidelines principles – and to promote increased interaction between research and fishing communities, including the use of traditional knowledge and participatory research. It is hoped that the case studies will inform policy and policy processes and, in this [...]

En Tchad, la vulnérabilité aux événements climatiques extrêmes est amplifiée par la faiblesse des structures administratives (ministères, organismes gouvernementaux et administrations locales), par le manque de ressources humaines et financières et le manque d'efficacité des capacités d’adaptation des ménages; les impacts des changements climatiques sont ressentis dans l'agriculture, l'élevage, la pêche, la santé, le logement ainsi que dans d’autres domaines. Compte tenu de ce contexte, renforcer la capacité de résilience de la population à des chocs récurrents tout en gardant à l'esprit l'hétérogénéité régionale est un élément clé qui doit être pris en compte dans les interventions de réduction de [...]

This brochure presents FAO ’s work on agricultural innovation. FAO advocates a shift from interventions focusing on single components of agricultural innovation towards a system-approach aimed at strengthening institutions and stakeholders’ networks that better respond to the needs of smallholder farmers. Agricultural innovation is the process whereby individuals or organizations bring new or existing products, processes or ways of organization into use for the first time in a specific context in order to increase effectiveness, competitiveness, resilience to shocks or environmental sustainability and thereby contribute to food security and nutrition, economic development or sustainable natural resource management. Innovation is central to [...]

The 2018 edition of The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture emphasizes the sector’s role in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals, and measurement of progress towards these goals. It notes the particular contributions of inland and small-scale fisheries, and highlights the importance of rights-based governance for equitable and inclusive development. As in past editions, the publication begins with a global analysis of trends in fisheries and aquaculture production, stocks, processing and use, trade and consumption, based on the latest official statistics, along with a review of the status of the world’s fishing fleets and [...]

Latin America and the Caribbean is falling short of the Sustainable Development Goal 1: Ending poverty. After two and a half decades of progress, poverty and extreme rural poverty increased by two percentage points each between 2014 and 2016. By 2017, there were an estimated 59 million poor and 27 million extreme poor in rural areas of the region. During the last 20 years, Latin America and the Caribbean has been at the forefront of global experiences in the reduction of rural poverty. The new regional context implies that the countries of the region must not only protect the progress made [...]

The Partnership note aims at providing readers with an overview of the work carried out by the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – one of the largest organizations of informal workers in the world– in bolstering financial inclusion for poor women, both in India (where SEWA is based) and abroad. The four-decade experience that SEWA can boast in providing financial services to poor women around the world - together with the unique financial innovations that the organization has developed through trial-and-error for its members - make SEWA an extremely interesting case study within the domain of development finance.

Through the Purchase from Africans for Africa programme (PAA Africa), the FAO has been engaging in providing technical support to African Governments for building adapted and operational public food procurement methods from smallholder farmers for school feeding. The methods of public procurement fostered by PAA Africa were developed in complex contexts of food insecurity and malnutrition, presenting occasional food deficit and / or chronic food insecurity, low agricultural productivity, institutional fragility and lack of governance, with population relying on food aid to overcome food insecurity. The publication aims at presenting best practices and lessons learned along of five years of [...]

This manual is designed for a four-day training course on climate-smart agriculture that would take the learner from the basics of climate science to the impacts of climate change and the linkages among climate, agriculture and food security. It contains four modules, each addressing a particular aspect and consisting of several sessions that are held either in plenary, as one group, or in smaller work groups. The content and structure of this manual has been developed and tested through fieldwork involving extension agents and agricultural producers in Zambia, Malawi and Viet Nam.  

The global market of organic products increased fivefold between 1999 and 2014, Organic Monitor projects growth to continue. This trend is also true for the Asian region where the third largest market for organic products in the world and forty percent of the world’s organic producers are located (a total of 0.9 million producers, mostly concentrated in India). Consumers in the region are increasingly demanding organic products to ensure food safety. This trend represents an opportunity for smallholder farmers practicing organic production to increase their sales and improve their livelihoods. Yet, this opportunity is not readily available to smallholder farmers in [...]

This policy guidance note is part of a series that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and partners are producing to support policy makers address the food security and nutrition situation in their country. Each note provides guidance on how to sharpen the focus of sector policies in order to achieve sustainable food security and nutrition outcomes. By supporting countries to formulate and adopt policies and programmes to eradicate hunger and attain food security, FAO contributes towards its Strategic Programme 1: help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition.  Public procurement has been commonly used as a tool [...]