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Rwanda has made remarkable progress since the 1994 genocide, which severely impoverished the population, particularly in delivering education and health services to the poor. The proportion of people suffering from hunger has been halved and the progress toward reducing under-nourishment has been commendable. However, 44 percent of Rwandans still live under the national poverty line.

Ensuring fairer access to land for Kenyan pastoralist communities Rapid population growth in Kenya has led to increased demand and competition for land and the goods and services associated with it. With research showing that effective control of land has great influence on people’s capacity to construct livelihoods, overcome poverty and malnutrition and improve food and nutrition security, the project was implemented to support the Government of Kenya in its efforts to provide more equitable access to land resources for communities in two pilot areas of the country, Tana River and Turkana counties. This was to be achieved using existing national and global [...]

Strengthening sustainable forest management Over the last 25 years criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management (C&I for SFM) have become a vital tool for developing a common understanding of the key components of sustainable forest management. They have been adopted and widely applied particularly for international and national reporting and for forest certification. They have undoubtedly helped to define SFM, providing a framework for discussion, and have stimulated improved monitoring. However, their use in policy and practice is limited, for a range of reasons. The project was designed to take stock of the status and use of forest indicators globally, and [...]

This document containing the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines on agro-environmental policies is mainly directed at people in charge of making and implementing policies on agriculture, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture in Latin America and the Caribbean. The guidelines are the result of an extensive consultation process and debates carried out through the project “Strengthening Agroenvironmental policies in Latin America and the Caribbean Through Dialogue and Exchange of National Experiences,” implemented by Brazil between 2012 and 2015 in the framework of South-South Cooperation, with the collaboration of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Nicaragua in the fi rst stage, and Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama and Paraguay in the second [...]

These FAO/IFAD guidelines are designed as a sourcebook to address recurrent problems faced by practitioners to prepare Economic and Financial Analysis (EFA) during design, supervision and ex-post evaluation of projects. This volume offers practical, short and well-referenced EFA guidance notes built on actual cases from EFA of various development projects. It aims to offer methodological "hints", guidance and inspiration for EFAs of a wide array of development interventions, including: nutrition, climate-smart agriculture, natural resource management, livestock production, land tenure security, water and sanitation, rural finance, irrigation, rural roads, value chains and demand-driven investments.  The target audience comprises consultants working for governments, IFAD [...]

Empirical evidence on the role of forests in food security, poverty reduction through income and employment generation, and addressing the challenges of climate change is increasingly being generated and documented. For the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region where forest resources are scarce and the potentials for timber production are limited, non-wood forest products (NWFPs) are becoming ever more important. Local people use these products to meet their daily needs; as a source of food, fodder and medicine, and to generate income. However, current production of NWFPs represents a small fraction of what it could actually be in most countries in [...]

FAO recognizes the potential of rural women and men in achieving food security and nutrition and is committed to overcoming gender inequality, in line with the pledge to “leave no one behind”, which is at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda. The publication illustrates the consistent and sustained work of FAO towards gender equality and women’s empowerment, which are at the core of the Organization’s work to eliminate hunger and rural poverty. Each chapter highlights the relevance of gender work to achieving the FAO Strategic Objectives, and describes main results achieved, showcasing activities implemented [...]

This course provides guidance on managing competition over the use of land, fisheries and forests. It introduces a process for analyzing the underlying causes of disputes and conflicts. It also illustrates a range of dispute resolution mechanisms and options for policy and legal reforms to prevent disputes and reduce vulnerability to conflict. Whote is the course for? The curriculum primarily addresses “change agents” - i.e. people who can have a direct impact by introducing changes in how tenure is governed. They include national policy makers and administrators, surveyors, trainers, legal support providers, civil society and non-governmental organizations, advocacy, control and monitoring professionals.  Language: English, French and Spanish See all [...]

The Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) approach, which is still in its nascent stages of development, is rapidly gaining attention as a more appropriate way to restore both degraded forests as well as the surrounding degraded landscape. The great value of this approach is that it integrates forest restoration actions with the desirable objectives of the landscape, and it is undertaken with the full participation of the people who will have a role in the management of the restored areas over the longer term. So, FLR brings together social, environmental and economic considerations in restoring the forests and lands, converse to [...]

At FAO, increasing the resilience of agriculture-based livelihoods against threats and crises is a corporate priority. FAO’s resilience work is multisectoral, encompassing all aspects of agriculture: crops, livestock, fisheries, aquaculture, forestry, natural resource management and value chains. FAO assists countries to increase the resilience of households, communities and institutions to more effectively prevent and cope with threats and disasters that impact agriculture, food security and nutrition.