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Parliamentary action is critical to securing the right to adequate food and transforming food systems that deliver healthy diets for all. Food security and nutrition indicators tend to show significant improvement when there is strong political will informing public policies and programmes anchored in legislation. FAO, through its Partnerships and UN Collaboration Division, seeks partnership and closer collaboration with parliamentarians, considering these relationships as key to its work on meeting mutual commitments on food and nutrition security, including the right to adequate food. In line with the FAO Strategic Framework 2022-2031, which seeks to support the 2030 Agenda through the [...]

La plaine de Berrechid – connue comme le « grenier » du Maroc – a connu une intensification désordonnée de l’irrigation au cours des deux dernières décennies. Malgré les gains économiques immédiats, ce processus a provoqué la surexploitation de la nappe aquifère de Berrechid, dont plus de 95% de l’eau pompée est destinée à l’agriculture. En 2011, l’Agence du Bassin Hydraulique du Bouregreg et de la Chaouia (ABH-BC) – une division gouvernementale supervisant l’utilisation de l’eau dans les régions du Bouregreg et de la Chaouia, qui comprend l’aquifère de Berrechid – a commencé à négocier un accord de gouvernance de l’eau [...]

Transforming agrifood systems depends crucially on how people can promote and benefit from innovation in governance. Fresh ways to look at policy dialogues and decision-making processes can help societies rapidly face interconnected challenges such as food insecurity and malnutrition, conflicts and the climate crisis. FAO promotes governance innovation to support countries in adopting the best-tailored strategies to pursue a sustainable, efficient, inclusive and resilient agrifood systems transformation. - In Indonesia, FAO has helped the government rethink its national strategic planning by using innovative analysis and modelling and supporting continuous consultation of actors at national and decentralized levels. - In Uganda, FAO has helped [...]

This policy brief provides a summary of water governance analysis undertaken in collaboration with national stakeholders. These include the Ministry of Energy and Water (MoEW) and the Beirut and Mount Lebanon Water Establishment (BMLWE), as part of the project “Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Water Efficiency/Productivity and Water Sustainability in NENA Countries” under the FAO Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity in the Near East and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The analysis, which will be summarized in a report (Gharios and Tanios, forthcoming), followed the governance framework described in the FAO paper “Focus on governance for [...]

The Global Parliamentary Pact against Hunger and Malnutrition 2023 is the outcome of the Second Global Parliamentary Summit against Hunger and Malnutrition, held in Chile on 15-16 June 2023.

Tenure rights are crucial to the livelihoods of people as they define who can use which natural resources, for how long, and under which conditions. Tenure of natural resources is also essential for environmental sustainability and increased resilience and for enabling farmers to access other services. As the world population continues to grow and climate change reduces the availability of natural resources, increasing conflicts over land, and land deterioration are negatively affecting rural livelihoods on an unprecedented scale. In particular, women often have much weaker tenure rights than men, and they suffer discrimination by social customs, as well as by [...]

Global instruments such as the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) and the Principles on Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (CFS-RAI) endorsed by the Committee for World Food Security (CFS) provide critical guidance on responsible investments in land and forests to address global challenges of food insecurity, poverty, and inequality while supporting sustainable management of natural resources. Applying these global instruments to the assessment of concrete cases can help to identify better practice models for implementation. This document presents a review of selected [...]

Public policies for family farming – when done appropriately – provide a perfect match between different policy areas related to productive, economic, social, environmental and cultural dimensions of sustainable food systems. The Learning framework for inclusive, integrated and innovative public policy cycles for family farming was developed under the framework of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming (2019–2028) to support policymakers, family farmers’ organizations and other relevant stakeholders to increase their understanding of public policy cycles and family farming related policies. This technical and methodological capacity development programme is adaptable to local, national or regional priorities. It offers a [...]

Agrifood systems in the Near East and North Africa are characterized by increasingly degraded natural resources and vulnerability to climate change, rapid population growth and protracted crises. In addition, the region has been affected by conflict that has further exposed the fragilities and worsened the challenges already faced by communities.   Conflict negatively affects the poverty rate, the economic capacity and functioning of agrifood value chains and people’s ability to produce, distribute and access food. In volatile operating environments, resources, government spending and private investment are frequently diverted or reduced, with lasting impact on agri-food value chains and consequently nutrition and food [...]

This handbook was developed by OECD and FAO to help companies embed considerations on deforestation and forest degradation into their corporate due diligence procedures. It is informed by FAO’s extensive work and experience on halting deforestation and forest degradation and promoting responsible governance of tenure. The handbook builds on the leading international, government-backed standards on supply chain due diligence and responsible business conduct: the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the associated due diligence framework set out in the OECD-FAO Guidance for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains and the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct. This handbook demonstrates how [...]