Results
Tool
2021
Sustainable Development Goals - FAO
FAO’s Statistical Capacity Assessment survey for SDG Indicators provides insights about member countries' national statistical systems in regard to their capacity to monitor and report the 21 SDG indicators under FAO custodianship. Details on the assessment conducted by FAO in 2018/19 and the resulting country profiles can be found here.
Issue paper
2021
Seizing the opportunities of the African Continental Free Trade Area for the economic empowerment of women in agriculture
The links between gender, trade, agriculture, and food security are inherently complex and difficult to generalize. It is therefore vital that the operationalization of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement ensures that future trade practices and regulations promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in the African continent, especially in supporting women to seize the new opportunities created by the AfCFTA in agriculture.
Issue paper
2021
Gender-responsive digitalization. A critical component of the COVID-19 response in Africa
The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken by governments on social distancing and mobility restrictions have contributed to boosting the use of digital technology to bridge some of the physical access gaps. An increasing number of services and extension/information activities are delivered through digital tools and applications. E-commerce has also flourished. As a result, the potential of digital technologies has gained prominence in immediate response and recovery strategies and programmes.See the full list of policy briefs related to COVID-19.
Briefs
2021
Mali – Analysis of conflicts over natural resources
Due to the economic dominance of the agriculture sector, Mali is extremely dependent on natural resources and also vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. The deterioration of ecosystems has strongly affected rural populations, resulting in a very poor performance in environmental governance. Gender inequalities are also present at all social levels and help create or exacerbate tensions between different social groups. In addition to the social tensions, the security situation in Mali is precarious due to the presence of non-state armed groups.
The conflict analysis was carried out to take stock of the current situation regarding conflicts over natural [...]
Briefs
2021
Supporting an enabling legal environment for women’s empowerment in food and agriculture
Empowerment is the “expansion of people’s ability to make strategic life choices” (Kabeer, 1999). According to the UN, women’s empowerment has five components: women’s sense of self-worth; their right to have and to determine choices; their right to have access to opportunities and resources; their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home; and their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally (FAO, 2017). The process of empowerment rests on enabling social conditions including social norms and legislative action [...]
Briefs
2021
Gender-responsive digitalization. A critical component of the COVID-19 response in Africa
The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken by governments on social distancing and mobility restrictions have contributed to boosting the use of digital technology to bridge some of the physical access gaps. An increasing number of services and extension/information activities are delivered through digital tools and applications. E-commerce has also flourished. As a result, the potential of digital technologies has gained prominence in immediate response and recovery strategies and programmes.See the full list of policy briefs related to COVID-19.
Report
2021
Global assessment of soil pollution: Report
Soil pollution is invisible to the human eye, but it compromises the quality of the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe and puts human and environmental health at risk. Most contaminants originate from human activities such as industrial processes and mining, poor waste management, unsustainable farming practices, accidents ranging from small chemical spills to accidents at nuclear power plants, and the many effects of armed conflicts. Pollution knows no borders: contaminants are spread throughout terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and many are distributed globally by atmospheric transport. In addition, they are redistributed through the global [...]
Briefs
2021
Blooming drylands – a practical approach for context-dependent economic, social and environmentally sustainable transformations
This policy brief is intended to inform decision-makers of nine transformational actions to sustain dryland production systems under the impact of climate change. It highlights the relevance of the local context for interventions and the importance of traditional and tested adaptive agrosilvopastoral strategies for building resilience. In addition, it emphasizes the potential for scaling up and using complementary technologies over wider areas. In particular, the roles of both women and men should not be neglected in terms of maintaining, creating and restoring dryland sustainable landscape.
Briefs
2021
The role of social protection in the recovery from COVID-19 impacts in fisheries and aquaculture
Food systems were severely hit by COVID-19 and the related restrictions to the movement of people and goods. In fisheries and aquaculture, the socio-economic effects of COVID-19 are manifold including changes in consumer demand, limited storage facilities, drop in fresh fish prices and stopping fishing operations.Many individuals working in the sector operate in the informal market with no coverage from labour market policies – not registered in mandatory social security, paid less than the legal minimum wage, without a written contract, or self-employed. These individuals include small-scale fishers, migrant, fish workers, ethnic minorities, crew members, harvesters, gleaners and vendors – [...]
Issue paper
2021
The impact of disasters and crises on agriculture and food security: 2021
On top of a decade of exacerbated disaster loss, exceptional global heat, retreating ice and rising sea levels, humanity and our food security face a range of new and unprecedented hazards, such as megafires, extreme weather events, desert locust swarms of magnitudes previously unseen, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Agriculture underpins the livelihoods of over 2.5 billion people – most of them in low-income developing countries – and remains a key driver of development. At no other point in history has agriculture been faced with such an array of familiar and unfamiliar risks, interacting in a hyperconnected world and a precipitously [...]