FAO.org

This note provides an overview of available evidence on return migration to rural areas due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the related implications for migrant workers and their families and communities of origin, as well as government response measures that have been taken.The inclusion of returnees and consideration of their socio-economic needs in the COVID-19 response and recovery measures is essential, regardless of registration of residence, migratory or working status. The immediate vulnerabilities of rural returnees and their families need to be addressed, while also investing in medium-to-long-term socio-economic objectives, to allow those who want to stay in rural areas to [...]

Bien que les flux migratoires en provenance des zones rurales soient un phénomène courant dans la plupart des pays en développement, nous disposons de peu d'informations sur leur dynamique et leurs déterminants. Dans ce contexte, en septembre 2017, dans le cadre du projet «Favoriser les investissements productifs pour créer des emplois agricoles et non agricoles décents pour les jeunes ruraux des zones sujettes aux migrations au Sénégal», la FAO et l'Agence nationale sénégalaise de statistique et de démographie ( ANSD) a mené une enquête auprès des ménages dans le but de générer des informations sur les phénomènes de migration en [...]

Population, food security, nutrition and sustainable development – why population growth, employment and urbanization lie at the heart of sustainable food systems development. Current food systems are facing paramount challenges: they must ensure equitable access to a healthy diet both in rural and urban areas while decrease burdens of malnutrition and environmental impacts. A new UN report - prepared with FAO’s support - explores the role of sustainable development for food security and  nutrition in the context of global population change.

With financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) leads the establishment of a data and analysis facility in the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other shocks. The objective of the facility is to improve decision making in support of the food security and livelihoods of all actors in key agricultural, livestock and fisheries value chains in high priority food crisis countries, with a focus on producers.This assessment was conducted between July and September 2020 across 16 governorates of Yemen.See the full list of [...]

Agricultural workers are exposed to many risks during their life cycle and are particularly vulnerable to covariate risks, such as droughts, armed conflict and pandemics. Despite the great potential of social protection policies to protect this segment of the population, agricultural workers are commonly excluded from social protection systems—especially from contributory schemes—due to legal, programme design, financial, administrative, institutional, participation, and information barriers. This paper analyses the availability of social insurance schemes for agricultural workers in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region, including many types of insurance: old age, disability and survivors’, sickness and maternity, work injury, and unemployment, [...]

Climate change poses a major threat to reducing poverty, eradicating hunger, and achieving sustainable development. It accelerates the frequency and intensity of extreme natural hazards, thus affecting the lives and livelihoods of those living in rural areas. Protecting poor and vulnerable small-scale food producers from climate change-related risks is necessary for achieving FAO’s strategic objectives and Sustainable Development Goals 1 (ending poverty) and 2 (zero hunger). This brief stresses the important role social protection plays in supporting inclusive climate risk-management strategies that contribute to safeguarding livelihoods and increasing the resilience of households.

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 [...]

Globally, and with only a few exceptions, rural and indigenous women fare worse than rural men and urban women and men on every indicator for which data are available. Although they share challenges in the form of rural location and genderbased discrimination, rural women and girls are not a homogeneous group. The opportunities and constraints they face differ across their lifetimes, contexts and circumstances; they are influenced by location and socio-economic statusand social identities associated with other forms of marginalization, such as indigenous origin and ethnicity, age, disability, migrant or refugee status. The complex experiences of rural and indigenous women [...]

The aim of this study is to provide readers with an overview of how agricultural insurance and social protection interventions can complement each other, within the frame of disaster risk management for vulnerable agricultural actors. Specifically, it aims to underline the operational nuances, challenges, opportunities and constraints associated with employing agricultural insurance within social protection systems. Furthermore, it presents a number of practical lessons learned and considerations that can be used by relevant public stakeholders (such as local policymakers and development agencies) to introduce aspects of agricultural insurance in programmes and initiatives that seek to strengthen social protection for vulnerable [...]

This action sheet is part of a series of action sheets developed under the seven key priority areas of the FAO COVID-19 Response and Recovery program, the FAO umbrella program designed to proactively and sustainably address the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic. Each action sheet includes a project proposal in support of countries most in need for which FAO is leveraging high-level political, financial, and technical expertise. All action sheets are gathered on the Food Coalition web hub, where members of the Coalition - a multi-stakeholder global alliance for unified global action in response to COVID-19 -  can easily access [...]