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South-South Cooperation (SSC) is the mutual sharing and exchange of development solutions between developing countries, including knowledge, experiences and good practices, policies, technology, and resources.The project in Uganda (Phases I and II) under the FAO-China SSC is among the Programme’s longest and most successful collaborations. Here, you can read the personal stories of some of the project participants, beneficiaries, and stakeholders. Their stories highlight the personal and community-level effects that the project has created. Their stories will also demonstrate the successes and positive impact of the project in their personal and professional lives while bringing to light the persistent challenges [...]

As part of the efforts to find sustainable solutions to complex land tenure issues, multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) create an inclusive forum where actors can discuss problems and propose solutions to improve governance of tenure and provide better access to natural resources. This publication highlights how MSPs at regional, national and local level demonstrate forward thinking, including innovative practices and approaches to respond to the above mentioned social challenges, for the benefit of all.

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified development challenges across Europe and Central Asia, generating ever more demand for rapid, accessible and reliable data to guide decision-making. The evolving pandemic and associated economic crisis are impacting food security and jeopardizing countries’ progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Identifying and evaluating the multi-faceted impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on the food security situation requires real-time, quality information that enables the measurement of changes in people’s access to food and an assessment of the underlying causes.See the full list of policy briefs related to COVID-19.

The aim of this report is to define the strategy for the Science and Policy Interface under Component 1 of the Resilient Food Systems Programme (RFS) Hub. Under this component, FAO and UN-Environment Programme, in partnership with RFS country projects and a range of other actors and platforms and institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, aim to address institutional and policy barriers to inclusion of ecosystem services-aware approaches into policies and investments for improved and sustainable smallholder agriculture and natural resources. The focus of this component is the facilitation of dialogue, models, policies, and institutions that bridge the agricultural and environmental agendas [...]

AGRIS is one of the most comprehensive databases for food and agricultural scientific literature worldwide. Accessible through a web portal, millions of bibliographic records in 90 different languages are available for free to global users. An international network of data providers, including publishers, governments and organizations, volunteer information (metadata) about science publications. These records are provided in multilingual formats and frequently include full text links to connect users to scientific literature worldwide.Over recent years, AGRIS has evolved to become an acknowledged information resource worldwide by moving from paper to digital, and from a centralized model to a distributed network. This [...]

The 2008 global food price crisis, and the resurgence of food prices in 2010-2011, caused both widespread concern and expectations. On the one hand, countries whose food supply depends on procuring food from international markets saw food price spikes as threats to their national food security. On the other hand, investors saw in these price spikes an opportunity to make profitable investments in agriculture. Either as threat or opportunity, food price spikes raised interest in Africa, whose lands are fertile and have unrealised potential. Concerns of a possible land acquisitions in Africa, and in particular the impacts of Large-Scale Land-Based [...]

This publication discusses the role information and communications technology (ICT) plays in agricultural mechanization, which has the potential to transform and improve smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Although mechanization levels tend to be low in African countries, there is still evidence of demand for mechanization services from smallholder farmers, especially tractor hire services. Where such demand exists, tractor owners have formed private hiring markets to provide the required services. The main challenge is related to high transaction costs – incurred by farmers due to information distortion concerning the availability of tractor hire services and how to access them, and by [...]

This report presents and reflects on the opportunities that new technological developments related to automation and precision agriculture (e.g. robotics) can offer to agriculture in developing countries. These technologies are mainly targeted to support farmers that struggle with the cost of labour when harvesting crops and to tackle the declining availability of manpower for general cropping operations. This report also explores the possible applications of agricultural technology, presents the current trends and discusses some of the principle challenges to successful adoption for sustainable agricultural mechanization in developing countries.

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 programme, the FAO umbrella programme 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 a unified global action in response to COVID-19 - can access the [...]

This study, the third of its type published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), adds further evidence that in mountain regions of developing countries, food insecurity, social isolation, environmental degradation, exposure to the risk of disasters and to the impacts of climate change, and limited access to basic services, especially in rural areas, are still prevalent and, under some circumstances, increasing. It also shows the technical challenges for producing more comprehensive and representative assessments based on scientific data, and providing a deeper understanding of the underlying factors of vulnerability of mountain people. Mountains cover 39 million [...]