The economic contributions of forests in Eastern African countries have not received the desired attention in terms of policy and budgetary allocation needed for sustained growth of these forests. This, among other reasons, has led to the reduction of forest zones and an increase in the import of forest-related products,...

Close to 12 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are in need of food assistance, as farming families struggle with the knock-on effects of multiple droughts that hit the region. Shukri Ahmed, FAO Senior Economist, illustrates the food insecurity situation, most affected sectors, the support needed and FAO’s response....

The Regional Initiative seeks to strengthen the programmes, mechanisms, capacity and delivery of actions needed to operationalize commitments to end hunger by 2025, and to support mapping exercises that identify gaps and determine requisite interventions to enhance policy dialogue on food security and nutrition, both at regional and country levels....

The Africa Solidarity Trust Fund (ASTF) is an innovative Africa-led fund to support Africa for African development initiatives. Its main goal is to strengthen food security across the continent by assisting countries and their regional organizations to eradicate hunger and malnutrition, eliminate rural poverty and manage natural resources in a...

The FAO Youth Mobility, Food Security and Rural Poverty Reduction (RYM) project aims at mitigating distress economic mobility in Tunisia and Ethiopia. With the support of the Italian Development Cooperation, the project will promote innovative mechanisms and rural development strategies with the objective of mitigating distress migration for rural youth...

Populations in Africa are increasingly exposed to the negative impact of natural and human-induced disasters such as drought, floods, disease epidemics and conflicts which threaten the agriculture production systems and livelihoods of vulnerable communities. The initiative on “Building Resilience in Africa’s Drylands” was developed to enhance the capacity of these...

This policy brief discusses ways to scale up agroecological approaches and suggests actionable advice tailored for various stakeholders, including policy-makers, private sector, financial partners, research and development community and civil society. The brief focuses on how to design scaling up initiatives and provides success as well as failure stories.

This video showcases FAO’s resilience works in Ethiopia’s Afar region in the last few years. 

2015 was a landmark year for the future of the planet and therefore for the future of every woman, man, girl and boy, in all four corners of the world. Two important events - the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit 2015 and COP21 on development and climate change, led to...

About 60 million people across Southern Africa and the Horn, Central America, and the Pacific face worsening hunger and poverty due to droughts and crop failures in 2014/5 that have been exacerbated by the El Niño weather system in 2015/6. This number is likely to rise. This short report gives...

This article presents findings on the local economy impacts of seven African country SCT programmes evaluated as part of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) “From Protection to Production” (PtoP) project. The countries are Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The PtoP project has facilitated expansion of...

One of the key questions in food policy debates in the last decades has been the role of cash cropping for achieving food security in low income countries. We revisit this question in the context of smallholder coffee production in Ethiopia. Using unique data collected by the authors on about...

The study had the major objective of identifying and documenting climate-smart agriculture initiatives, technologies, practices and stakeholders in the Eastern Africa Sub-region with a special focus on Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, so as to produce a report that would enable stakeholders to understand the opportunities and constraints associated with adopting...

In Africa, small-scale agriculture – including post-production activities such as handling, processing and marketing – is a major source of income in rural areas. In recent years, women have increased their role in the rural sector significantly, and their contribution to household and commercial agriculture is fundamental. Empowering and investing...

This brief describes the broad array of impacts arising from a cash transfer programme that was piloted in the Tigray region of Ethiopia from 2011 to 2014. About 80 percent of Tigray’s population of 4.3 million live in rural areas and depend on rain-fed subsistence agriculture for their livelihoods. Farm...

Ethiopia is facing a massive drought and food insecurity crisis. The impact of failed rains and droughts have been worsened by the 2015 El Niño, which itself has been supercharged by climate change. Urgent humanitarian action is needed to support millions of people who have lost food, water and livelihoods....

The 88 page illustrated book showcases 15 case studies, showing how agroecology benefits Africa in terms of food and nutrition, livelihoods, restoration of biodiversity, knowledge and innovation, and climate change resilience. Leading experts in their fields explain how agroecology reforms food systems to promote better nutrition and health, especially among poor...

In 2015, drought exacerbated by El Niño ravaged Ethiopia’s highlands and lowlands, resulting in crop failure and wide-scale animal losses. To counter the devastating impact on the vulnerable smallholder farmers that make up the bulk of Ethiopia’s workforce, FAO initiated a number of livestock and crop-based interventions in order to...

Ethiopia’s economy is rapidly transforming. However, the extent to which this is affecting off-farm income and labor markets in rural areas is not well understood. Based on a large-scale household survey in high potential agricultural areas, we find that total off-farm income (defined as wage and enterprise income) makes up...

We use qualitative and quantitative information from a number of datasets to study the adoption patterns and labor productivity impacts of herbicide use in Ethiopia. We find a four-fold increase in the value of herbicides imported into Ethiopia over the last decade, primarily by the private-sector. Adoption of herbicides by...