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Extending the coverage of social insurance schemes to rural areas of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is challenging because of high administrative costs and a lack of necessary capacity. As a result agriculture workers tend to be left out of these schemes. This research report aims to understand the main administrative barriers and capacity constraints that may hinder the coverage of agriculture workers in social insurance schemes, and suggest possible strategies that could be considered to address them. Also available in Arabic

In this paper, we propose a simple methodology to select a limited number of geographical areas to prioritize for commodity-specific investments in Uganda. Similar to other approaches for prioritizing investments geographically, the basic idea behind the proposed method is that districts with high agro-ecological potential, that are also far from their potential and have high levels of poverty, should be prioritized for commodity-specific investments as they are where investments are likely to have the highest impact. The methodology then proposes an iterative elimination algorithm to provide a list of suggested districts that rank high in all dimensions.The results highlight that [...]

Countries’ varying natural resource endowments are vital in explaining international trade. Traditional trade theory suggests that differences in technology and factor endowments lead countries to specialize and export certain goods or services in which they have a comparative advantage.The computable general equilibrium (CGE) model simulations used in this paper aim to explain agricultural trade patterns and show how agricultural trade would change in response to productivity, infrastructure and institutions improvements and trade cost changes from regional and global trade liberalization. A set of nine scenarios is used to explore the effects of productivity, transport costs, non-tariff barriers (NTB), and border [...]

Cette note de recommandations pour des politiques publiques au Niger a été élaborée dans le cadre du projet AgrInvest-Systèmes Alimentaires «favoriser l’investissement efficace et inclusif du secteur privé dans les systèmes agroalimentaires». L’objectif de la présente note est de formuler des propositions de politiques publiques facilitant les investissements durables dans la filière oignon au Niger. La note vise aussi à identifier des stratégies pour l’engagement de plusieurs parties prenantes dans la mise en œuvre de ces interventions.

Paraguay mostró un crecimiento económico importante entre el 2010 y el 2019, a pesar de cierta contracción en el 2019, en el cual la agricultura contribuyó significativamente. Las proyecciones apuntan a una recuperación económica desde el año 2021, pero surge la pregunta de cuáles podrían ser los motores del nuevo crecimiento.Las carencias de la agricultura, principalmente en la agricultura familiar campesina, son preocupantes. Falta nueva inversión en infraestructura productiva, asistencia técnica, tecnología, créditos y acceso a insumos e implementos modernos. La inversión pública no solo ha sido reducida, sino que pareciera que la agricultura no entra notablemente en los planes [...]

This is the policy brief of a paper that investigates whether an increase in exogenous income through the Child Grants model of the Social Cash Transfer programme in Zambia fosters economic inclusion among rural women.

The Agricultural Outlook 2022-2031 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. It brings together the commodity, policy and country expertise of both organisations as well as input from collaborating member countries to provide an annual assessment of the prospects for the coming decade of national, regional and global agricultural commodity markets. The publication consists of 11 Chapters; Chapter 1 covers agricultural and food markets; Chapter 2 provides regional outlooks and the remaining chapters are dedicated to individual commodities.

The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2022 (SOCO 2022) discusses how trade policies, based on both multilateral and regional approaches, can address today’s challenges for sustainable development. Trade policies in food and agriculture should aim to safeguard global food security, address the trade-offs between economic and environmental objectives, and strengthen the resilience of the global agrifood system to shocks, such as conflicts, pandemics and extreme weather. The report discusses the geography of trade, analysing food and agricultural trade and its patterns across countries and regions, its drivers and the trade policy environment. Comparative advantage, trade policies and trade costs shape the [...]

Access to formal credit is critical to farmers for purchasing inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, plant protection materials or animal feed. In the absence of personal savings, borrowing from informal sources (such as moneylenders, relatives and friends) may involve unduly high interest rates and unfavourable conditions, which may make many agricultural operations uneconomical. The lack of access to credit is particularly problematic for farmers as there is a gap between the time that money is spent on cultivating crops or raising livestock, and the time money is made from the sale of the products.Credit to agriculture measures the amount of [...]

The Progress towards Sustainable Agriculture initiative (PROSA) is a framework that seeks to complement ongoing efforts on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and particularly indicator 2.4.1, to support country-level assessments using data already available at the national level. Making agriculture more sustainable – productive, environmentally friendly, resilient and profitable is fundamental, as agriculture remains the main source of livelihood for the majority of the world’s poor and hungry. The pathway towards sustainable agriculture must ensure increasing output, but also make more efficient use of increasingly scarce global resources, be resilient to and help mitigate climate change, and improve human well-being. This [...]