FAO.org

Increase the use of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure among CSOs and Grassroots Organizations – Kyrgyzstan is a country factsheet that provides information on the project “Increase the use of the VGGT among CSOs and Grassroots Organizations”, a general overview of governance of natural resources in the country, and information on activities undertaken in the country in collaboration with local CSOs and grassroots organizations.  See the complete learning guide for civil society organizations here. See more country factsheets here.

The endorsement of the National School Feeding Programme (Projecto de Alimentação Escolar—PRONAE) by the Mozambican Council of Ministers in 2013 represented a key stage in the institutionalization of school feeding and local food purchases in the country’s education system. This publication presents analysis on the divide between policy change and effective implementation. An FAO project, the Purchase from Africans for Africa (PAA Africa), is assessed regarding its demonstrative effect and contributions to enlarge the knowledge basis for translating policy change in effective purchases of food from smallholders for a diversified food basket at schools. The need for a regulatory framework [...]

Good institutions are a fundamental pre-requisite to successfully achieve structural transformation in growing developing countries (UNECA, 2016). Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing a rapid growth but a weak and slow structural transformation process, which is mainly characterized by the reallocation of labour from agriculture to low skilled services. The focus of this paper is to explore how political and economic institutions affect structural transformation in a panel of 11 sub-Saharan African countries. Our empirical analysis reveals a positive and statistically significant effect of quality of institutions and economic freedom measures on structural transformation between sectors, which translates into movement out of agriculture. Better institutions appear to not improve productivity [...]

Les écarts entre l’engagement politique en faveur de l’égalité entre les hommes et les femmes et leur concrétisation, et la disponibilité limitée de données ventilées par sexe et d’indicateurs sensibles au genre pour éclairer l’élaboration des politiques et des programmes et l’allocation des budgets, contribuent à la marginalisation des femmes dans de nombreux secteurs. Le manque d’une situation de référence basée sur des données fiables empêche de mesurer les progrès accomplis vers l’autonomisation des femmes dans l’agriculture, la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition, le développement rural et la gestion des ressources naturelles. Ce rapport a été conjointement préparé par la FAO et la Commission de la [...]

Gaps between policy and implementation, and limited availability of sex disaggregated data and gender-sensitive indicators to inform sound policies and budgets have kept women marginalized in many sectors. No baselines mean no measurement of progress in effectively implementing the array of commitments towards gender equality and women’s empowerment in agriculture, food security and nutrition, rural development and management of natural resources. This report reveals gender disparities in access to critical agriculture and rural resources, knowledge, opportunities, services and markets. It explores the existing gender relations and gaps in the various sub sectors of agriculture, and their possible causes and impact on food and nutrition [...]

Effective organizations are critical for sustainable development, particularly for food security and agriculture. This course explains how to carry out effective analysis and development of state and non-state organizations in member countries. It also provides illustrations of organizational change, including in government ministries, producer organizations and research institutes. Users will learn:  The importance of analysing organizations’ strengths and weaknesses How to carry out comprehensive analyses of organizations How to design and implement organizational change How to engage in effective multi-stakeholder processes How to monitor progress in organizational development

El Niño, which swept the Philippines from 2015 to 2016, had a significant impact on agricultural production and food security. The project aimed to restore agriculture-based livelihoods of drought-affected farmers in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and the Region XII, where a state of calamity was declared in four provinces. The project provided relevant agricultural inputs to the most affected and most vulnerable farm households and technical assistance through capacity building  of the relevant institutions, extension workers and farmers in building resilience to shocks, effective drought management and more robust monitoring and forecasting systems. Find more Project Highlights here.

During the period 2007-2016, the government’s main policies for the agricultural sector have focused on increasing domestic rice production, reforming the cotton sector and maintaining input subsidies programmes. With regards to consumer policies, the main forms of assistance include food distribution, food sales at subsidized prices, and ad hoc measures to stabilize food prices such as the closure of the border for food exports or the waiver of import duties on imported foods.

These Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication have been developed as a complement to the 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (the Code). They were developed to provide complementary guidance with respect to small-scale fisheries in support of the overall principles and provisions of the Code. Accordingly, the Guidelines are intended to support the visibility, recognition and enhancement of the already important role of small-scale fisheries and to contribute to global and national efforts towards the eradication of hunger and poverty. The Guidelines support responsible fisheries and sustainable social and economic development for the benefit of [...]

The present study reviews recent trends in rural finance and investment in general, and in the agricultural sector in particular, within the Asian region. The analysis of these trends aims to offer a critical perspective on some of the main constraints to achieving more inclusive rural financial systems in developing countries in the region, and to propose areas of public and private intervention that could advance this objective, based on evidence compiled from important innovations led by local rural actors in various countries within the region. The study makes a joint analysis of recent trends in both agricultural markets and [...]