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Negative and positive drivers affecting forests in the GMS co-exist. Negative drivers result in deforestation and forest degradation, and positive drivers promote sustainable forest management (SFM), forest conservation, afforestation and reforestation. Negative drivers are still more dominant than positive ones. Nevertheless, growing signs of positive drivers are starting to emerge in the GMS countries. Policy makers, forest managers and practitioners need to be aware of these drivers and find ways to enhance the positive ones, while reducing the negative ones. In order to promote SFM and address deforestation and forest degradation, the GMS countries need to foster integrated land-use planning [...]

The AMIS policy database gathers information on trade measures and domestic measures related to the four AMIS crops (wheat, maize, rice, and soybeans) as well as biofuels. The design of this database allows comparisons across countries, across commodities and across policies for selected periods of time.

The present document reviews and assesses the recent and ongoing initiatives dedicated to monitoring and analysing Public Expenditure in support of Agriculture (PEA) in Africa. This document fills a gap and responds to the need of policy-makers and policy analysts in Africa for a detailed and analytical review of what exists in terms of PEA monitoring and analysis in Africa. The objective of the present review is thus to: (i) shed light on PEA monitoring and analysis initiatives in Africa: not only their method and definition of agriculture, but also their nature, objectives, scope, current status, and most importantly their [...]

West African Agriculture is at a turning point. The combination of strong demand growth, sustained economic growth, higher global agricultural prices, and an improved policy environment has generated the most conducive conditions for Agricultural growth in over 30 years. West African countries and their Development Partners now clearly recognize the sector’s vital importance for broad-based growth, food security, improved nutrition and poverty reduction. At the same time, a combination of old and new challenges ranging from climate change to increased price volatility threaten the ability of West Africans to seize these opportunities. In view of the challenges and opportunities facing [...]

From 2003, the Zero Hunger Program and subsequently, in 2011, the Brazil Without Poverty Plan, marked a deliberate convergence of the purposes and actions focused on farmers and family farmers in Brazil. This allowed simultaneous access to social policies and polices focused on agriculture and livestock activities, through a permanent set of public policies, such as rural credit, climate and income insurance, technical assistance and commercialization. This happened in parallel to affirmative actions related to gender, ethnicity and rural youth. To deal with such complex themes such as eradicating hunger and extreme poverty, the Federal Government began to integrate traditionally [...]

Global trade in agricultural and food products has grown rapidly in recent decades, with countries becoming more engaged in this trade, whether as exporters or importers. This trend is expected to continue over the coming decades. As a consequence, trade will play an increasingly important role in influencing the extent and nature of food security across all regions of the globe. The challenge has therefore become one of ensuring that the expansion of agricultural trade works for, and not against, the elimination of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. This edition of The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets aims to reduce [...]

This publication “School feeding and possibilities for direct purchases from family farming in Latin American countries” contributes to the articulation of the sectors involved with school feeding, in the search for alternatives for the institutionalization and strengthening of school feeding policies in the countries; it is also hoped that in the medium and long term SFPs can contribute to the human right to food (HRF) and to sustainable human development.

This publication provides an overview of the most important debates which ensued in the four and a half years of the official writing of the India’s National Food Security Act (2013). The Act is legally binding for national and federal state governments to further extend the outreach of social protection to the country’s population.  These discussions cover several questions about the nature and extent of the state’s duties and possible strategies for food provisioning as part of a larger framework of social protection.  The debates summarized are based on the author’s participation in many of the processes related to the right to [...]

The “Right to Food Handbook” series is a collection of 10 publications, prepared in collaboration with PROSALUS, based on the different volumes of the Right to Food Methodological Toolbox.  Each publication provides practical information and guidance on how to implement the right to food and apply human rights-based approaches to key areas of work, namely, legislation, monitoring, assessment, budget and education.   

This tool has been designed as a way to provide comprehensive policy support to governments and development partners in the context of FAO’s Integrated Country Approach for promoting Decent Rural Employment (DRE).