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Arab Forum For Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) Country brief - Saudi Arabia
17/11/2025
The Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) strengthens inclusive, climate-smart advisory services across the Arab region by linking public, private, and civil-society providers. In Saudi Arabia, agriculture is modest yet strategic, contributing 2.7 percent of GDP in 2023 and employing about 3 percent of the population.
Arab Forum For Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) Country brief - Egypt
28/10/2025
The Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) strengthens rural advisory and extension systems across the Arab region by linking public, private, and civil-society providers to scale inclusive, climate-smart services. In Egypt, agriculture remains a cornerstone of Egypt’s economy and poverty reduction strategy, employing 19 percent of the population (World Bank, 2023).
Arab Forum For Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS)Country brief - Iraq
28/10/2025
The Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) strengthens inclusive, climate-smart advisory services across the Arab region. In Iraq, agriculture underpins rural livelihoods yet remains a modest economic contributor: about 22 percent of land is agricultural, the sector provides ~8 percent of jobs and 2.8 percent of GDP, and most farms are smallholders (over 80 percent under 10 ha, often fragmented). Production is dominated by cereals—especially wheat and barley,
Arab Forum For Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS)Country brief - Syria
28/10/2025
Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) is a regional platform that strengthens inclusive, climate-smart advisory and extension systems by linking public, private, and civil-society providers across the Arab region. Arable land made up 25.4 percent of the Syrian Arab Republic’s landmass in 2021 (World Bank, 2021a).
Arab Forum For Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) Country brief - Palestine
28/10/2025
The Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) strengthens inclusive, climate-smart advisory services across the Arab region. In Palestine, farming persists under severe human-induced constraints, movement restrictions and land confiscation compounded by water scarcity, which also weakens extension delivery.
Arab Forum For Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS)Country brief - Morocco
28/10/2025
The Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) strengthens inclusive, climate-smart advisory services across the Arab region. In Morocco, agriculture remains central for livelihoods and trade in a predominantly smallholder landscape. About two thirds of national land is agricultural, the sector contributed roughly a tenth of GDP in 2023, and nearly a third of employment, with women representing almost half of the agricultural workforce.
Arab Forum For Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS)Country brief - Sudan
28/10/2025
The Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) is a regional platform that strengthens inclusive, climate-smart advisory and extension systems by linking public, private, and civil-society providers across the Arab region.
Arab Forum For Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS)Country brief - Algeria
28/10/2025
The Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) strengthens inclusive, climate-smart advisory services across the Arab region by linking public, private, and civil-society providers. In Algeria, agriculture is an important pillar of the economy: about 13 percent of GDP, 9 percent of total employment, and a quarter of the population living in rural areas. Arable land exceeds 7.5 million hectares, and roughly 17.3 percent of national territory is agricultural.
Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) Country brief - Bahrain
28/10/2025
Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) strengthens rural advisory and extension systems across the Arab region by linking public, private, and civil-society providers to scale inclusive, climate-smart services.
Arab Forum For Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) Country brief - Jordan
28/10/2025
The Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) is a regional platform strengthening rural advisory and extension systems across the Arab region by linking public, private, and civil-society providers to scale inclusive, climate-smart services. This brief highlights a water-scarce agrifood sector in Jordan that, though modest in GDP and employment, remains strategic for livelihoods.
Social innovation trends in the Near East and North Africa region: Examples and opportunities for action An assessment of their agribusiness capacities and institutional environment
30/07/2025
This report presents research on social innovation and relevant trends for small-scale farming in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region. Social innovation is an approach to community development that gained momentum in the second half of the 2010s as a response to the challenges imposed by the post- crisis economy and austerity policies.
Policy incubator on extending social insurance for agriculture workers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region Expert group meeting report 24-26 June 2024
24/07/2025
As part of their broader efforts to address informality and decent work deficits in the agriculture sector, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and International Labour Organization (ILO) engaged with practitioners and policymakers in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region to advance the understanding of the institutional, administrative and financial barriers that hinder the inclusion of agricultural workers in social insurance schemes.
Stocktaking and situation analysis of FAO's work with cooperatives and other forms of collective action in the Near East and North Africa region
24/07/2025
Agricultural cooperatives, Producer and Professional Organizations (PPOs), and Water Users Associations (WUAs) in the North Africa and Near East (NENA) region play a crucial role in supporting small-scale family farming, which is vital for the regional economy.
Executive summary - Mapping affordable and tranferrable climate-smart technologies for small-holder farmers
31/12/2024
In response to the pressing need for innovative solutions to address food security challenges, a tripartite cooperation agreement between the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), FAO’s Regional Office for the Near East North Africa and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)initiated a comprehensive “Mapping exercise of affordable and transferrable food security-related technologies.”
Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services
11/11/2024
Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) is the first of its kind community of experts, champions, policy makers and practitioners from different sectors committed to advancing extension and Rural Advisory Services (RAS) across the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region.
Farmer Field Schools (FFS) for mutual learning and collective action
11/08/2024
The Farmer Field Schools (FFS) approach promotes learning through participatory methods, knowledge and experience exchange, and direct observation through hands-on exercises in the field, discussions and decision-making. It builds on local knowledge while testing and validating scientific concepts developed elsewhere.
Advancing rural advisory services in Arab countries to promote market orientation and inclusive transformation
31/12/2023
The regional study was elaborated by May Hani (FAO Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division), Valentina Sommacal (FAO Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division), Rasheed Sulaiman V (Centre for Research on Innovation and Science Policy – CRISP) and Cécile Berranger (FAO Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division).
Guide for monitoring and evaluation of the public agricultural extension and advisory service system
29/12/2023
This guide is aimed to propose a holistic, systemic, and easy-to-use methodology that is multiscalar, multisectoral, and multidimensional for the M&E of public EAS systems to help identify gaps and pathways to strengthen and reform the public EAS system.