FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia

Europe and Central Asia – Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2023

Statistics and trends

The 2023 Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in Europe and Central Asia is the ninth Europe and Central Asia report monitoring regional trends and progress made towards reaching Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 food security and nutrition targets. SDG 2, often referred to as the “Zero Hunger” goal, aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

Publications
05/2023

The flyer details the activities that are ongoing as part of the digital Villages initiative in REU. Digital Villages enhance rural resilience and food security by providing farmers with digital tools for accessing inputs, market information, and alternative sales channels online. They deliver real-time data on prices, weather, and pests, enabling informed decisions on crop management and purchasing.

11/2024

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) applies its technical expertise in humanitarian mine action to restore agricultural lands and enhance food security. By prioritizing demining efforts based on agricultural needs and mitigating soil contamination, FAO promotes sustainable recovery in affected areas. This document outlines FAO’s role in humanitarian mine action and its strategic approach to integrating agricultural recovery within mine action efforts.

11/2024

In Albania, despite many positive policies and legal developments regarding gender equality, the ownership and management of agricultural businesses remain heavily male-dominated. This policy paper examines the experiences of three European Union countries – Belgium, France and Spain – to showcase good practices for enhancing the role and status of spouses and partners in agricultural businesses.

10/2024

This publication employs FAO's gender-responsive value chain approach to analyze three case studies from Elbasan, Puka, and Leskovik. It highlights the opportunities for strengthening the role of women producers and processors in value chains and identifies key barriers that hinder women's full participation.

09/2024

Food systems in the member states of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) are changing quickly as economies grow, diets become less traditional and policies shift. This report seeks to provide an overview of key tendencies across diverse food systems in the region over the last decade.

08/2024

This edition of FAO Europe and Central Asia Gender Newsletter highlights the pivotal findings of FAO’s new report on women-responsive rural advisory services, critical updates on the revised Country Gender Assessment for Tajikistan, the story of a leading woman beekeeper from Uzbekistan, and the progress on climate resilient economic empowerment for women in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

05/2024

The Digital Agri Hub has established an important alliance with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Together, FAO and Digital Agri Hub are pooling their resources and expertise to accelerate the adoption and scaling up of digital solutions and services throughout Europe and Central Asia, with a focus on Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

01/2024

Effective data collection during food control procedures by the public authorities is essential to ensure food safety and compliance with regulations. Using modern technology plays a vital role in acquiring information from food businesses, food control inspections, and other food control actions.

06/2022

The project supported the development and rollout of a NAITS based on open source frameworks (to avoid present and future licensing costs), using modern digital technologies to minimize costs and provide the utmost flexibility, in compliance with the IT strategy of the MEPA. In parallel, the project deployed equipment for the intended users of the software and developed their capacities.

11/2022

This report presents the results of the final evaluation of the project “Technical Assistance to Support the Establishment of a National Animal Identification, Registration and Traceability System (NAITS) in Georgia” implemented from 1 December 2016 to 31 December 2021.

03/2023

Digital agricultural extension and advisory services (AEAS) have a great potential to enhance accessibility, delivery, transparency, scope and impacts of information and services for smallholder farmers. However, this potential is often unfully harnessed and the benefits of digital AEAS unequally distributed due to an evident, widening digital divide between rural and urban areas, gender, and different social groups both within and among regions.

05/2024

The ITU Office for Europe and the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia co-authored this document to serve primarily as a compendium supporting the entry of EU pre-accession countries to the EU single market and the alignment of their agricultural policies with the emerging EU legislation related to digital agriculture, and more specifically, the CAP and its delivery.

10/2024

This publication employs FAO's gender-responsive value chain approach to analyze three case studies from Elbasan, Puka, and Leskovik. It highlights the opportunities for strengthening the role of women producers and processors in value chains and identifies key barriers that hinder women's full participation in Albania. Agribusiness incubators are highlighted in the report as innovative solutions designed to meet the specific needs of rural women and promote their economic empowerment.

08/2023

In response to the growing demand for seizing the opportunities brought by digital technologies, the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia has formulated a comprehensive regional action plan to integrate science and innovation and has introduced the Digital REU 2022–2030 approach. It emphasizes affordable and equitable access for rural communities and smallholder farmers, viewing technology as a catalyst for accelerating the sustainable transformation of agrifood systems.

06/2024

This publication assesses the extent, progress and challenges of providing gender-responsive agricultural extension services in Albania based on the FAO Gender and Rural Advisory Services Assessment Tool (GRAST) methodology. This assessment identifies the key gaps at national, organizational and field levels that hinder the achievement of the relevant Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the country’s progress towards inclusive and sustainable agrifood systems.

11/2024

In Albania, despite many positive policies and legal developments regarding gender equality, the ownership and management of agricultural businesses remain heavily male-dominated. his policy paper examines the experiences of three European Union countries – Belgium, France and Spain – to showcase good practices for enhancing the role and status of spouses and partners in agricultural businesses. Albania can benefit from these examples to strengthen women's rights in agriculture.

07/2024

This book examines the importance and potential of geographical indication (GI) in Central Asia, drawing insights from global experiences in promoting GI products. It includes successful case studies and provides recommendations for Kyrgyzstan. It illustrates a number of good practices in the promotion of GIs and appellation of origin (AO) products by showing the quality and other positive impacts of geographical indication (GI) value chains.

07/2024

The EIFAAC workshop on citizen science in fisheries was held virtually on 29 February 2024. It was organized by the EIFAAC Secretariat and Inland Fisheries Ireland. The workshop was attendedby 79 participants from 21 countries. Five invited speakers presented their citizen science research findings and recommendations.

07/2024

The Sixth International Carp Conference was organized in Szarvas, Hungary, on 31 August–1 September 2023. The conference aimed to strengthen the “carp segment” within European aquaculture, improve the image of carp pond aquaculture as common European heritage, and to explore the opportunities for carp within “blue aquaculture”. The Sixth International Carp Conference approved the “Szarvas Declaration”.

07/2024

A series of country change stories has been documented in an attempt to ground the global agrifood systems discourse in specific realities and make sense of what they mean at country level. The five stories in this publication illustrate the varied ways in which FAO accompanied governments, civil society organizations and other development partners on a journey of agrifood systems transformation in Côte d’Ivoire, Cambodia, the Pacific, Guatemala and Albania.