FAO.org

Identifies the links between decent employment and food security and shows how improving policy coherence between employment and agricultural initiatives and investing more in the promotion of decent rural employment will contribute highly to the interlinked challenges of fighting rural poverty and feeding a growing world population in a sustainable way.

Secure tenure is an important prerequisite for sustainable forest management. More diversified tenure systems  could provide a basis for improving forest management  and local livelihoods, particularly where the State has  insufficient capacity to manage forests. In the past decade  many countries have initiated efforts to reform their tenure arrangements for forests and forest land,  devolving some degree of access and management from the State to others, mainly households, private c ompanies  and communities. This publication provides practical guidance for policy-makers and others concerned with addressing forest tenure reform. Drawing from many  sources, including forest tenure assessments carried out by FAO [...]

Women make significant contributions to the rural economy in all developing country regions. Their roles differ across regions, yet they consistently have less access than men to the resources and opportunities they need to be more productive. Increasing women’s access to land, livestock, education, financial services, extension, technology and rural employment would boost their productivity and generate gains in terms of agricultural production, food security, economic growth and social welfare. Closing the gender gap in agricultural inputs alone could lift 100–150 million people out of hunger.  No blueprint exists for closing the gender gap, but some basic principles are universal: governments, [...]

This paper reviews rural women’s access to financial services, a key factor of successful rural development strategies. Designing appropriate financial products for women to be able to save, borrow and insure is essential to strengthen women’s role as producers and widen the economic opportunities available to them. For this purpose it is essential to understand how context-specific legal rights, social norms, family responsibilities and women’s access to and control over other resources shape their need for capital and their ability to obtain it. The paper argues that it is important that development strategies that aim to boost rural women’s productive [...]

FAO - in partnership with the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education and Higher Education, the Ministry of Youth and Sport, Youth Development Association and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) - has recently published a case study report on “Promoting Employment and Entrepreneurship for Vulnerable Youths in West Bank and Gaza Strip” Youth in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) face enormous challenges related to occupation, conflict, deep rural poverty, food insecurity and lack of extracurricular activities. Israeli closure policies, the construction of the Separation Wall, land confiscation, limited access to [...]

This guidance document will:  Introduce the concepts of rural employment and decent work (RE&DW). Acknowledge the centrality of RE&DW for the achievement of the Millennium  Development Goals (MDGs) • Affirm FAO’s comparative advantages in dealing with RE&DW and identify the main areas  of intervention • Provide a summary of the results of FAO’s “Self-Assessment on Employment and Decent Work • Suggest examples of concrete actions that FAO country offices could consider to promote  RE&DW w ithin their existing work programmes  • Encourage the creation of links with International Labour Organization (ILO) field offices  and facilitate partnerships and the identification of synergies.  

The number of undernourished people in the world remains unacceptably high at close to one billion in 2010 despite an expected decline – the first in 15 years. This decline is largely attributable to a more favourable economic environment in 2010 – particularly in developing countries – and the fall in both international and domestic food prices since 2008.  FAO estimates that a total of 925 million people are undernourished in 2010 compared with 1.023 billion in 2009. Most of the decrease was in Asia, with 80 million fewer hungry, but progress was also made in sub-Saharan Africa, where 12 million [...]

It is a simple methodology for teaching vulnerable children and young people  about farming and how to take care of themselves. It uses a “living classroom" approach in which the students observe the crops throughout the growing season  with the help of a facilitator. Agricultural topics are linked to life skills so that when  children talk about how to protect their plants from diseases they also learn how to  protect themselves from diseases and other adverse conditions. The school bui lds  the students’ self-confidence and problem solving skills by having them decide  for themselves what steps are required, for example, [...]

Livestock contribute 40 percent of the global value of agricultural output and support the livelihoods and food security of almost a billion people. Rapidly rising incomes and urbanization, combined with underlying population growth, are driving demand for meat and other animal products in many developing countries. These changes and the speed with which they are occurring have created systemic risks for livelihoods, human and animal health and the environment. To meet the challenges and constraints of the twenty-first century, the livestock sector requires appropriate institutions, research, development interventions and governance that reflect the diversity within the sector and the multiple demands [...]

The rural sector’s lack of resilience to climatic accidents seems to be one of the main reasons for the transformation of climatic accidents into environmental, economic and social disasters for local communities. Thus, the integration of activities geared towards the improvement of community resilience seems to be of utmost priority. This can be achieved by integrating prevention and risk-management tools into already existing social safety-nets within the framework of food security and poverty reduction strategies. “Social protection initiatives are as much at risk from climate change as other development approaches. They are unlikely to succeed in reducing poverty if they do [...]