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These guidelines provide users with the key notions required to carry out analyses of policy impacts by means of a value chain approach and show how to do it in a practical way by making use of relevant tools. In particular, the reader will find this material useful to: Identify the basic units operating in a given value chain (=agents) and the activities they undertake; Quantify the gross revenues, value added creation and profits of every agent; Build different scenarios and measure changes in revenues, value added creation and profits for the different scenarios; Build a Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) and compute protection and [...]

This study, developed jointly with the Geneva academy of humanitarian law and human rights, aims to provide guidance on how the right to adequate food can best be integrated into the two frameworks ”The Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition (GSF)” and “the UN Comprehensive Framework for Action (CFA)”. Formed as both an analytical and practical tool, the study divided into four main sections: the evolution of the right to adequate food and the rights-based approach to the fight against hunger; an introduction to the CFA/UCFA as well as the GSF; possible ways to introduce the right to adequate [...]

The FAO project, Articulating and mainstreaming agricultural trade policy and support measures, was implemented during 2008-2010. With a view to maximize the contribution of trade to national development, a process has been underway in many developing countries to mainstream trade and other policies into national development strategy such as the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). A similar process of mainstreaming is strongly advocated, and underway, for trade-related support measures, inc luding through the Aid for Trade initiative. In view of this, there is a high demand for information, analyses and advice on best approaches to undertaking these tasks. It was [...]

The FAO Value Chain Analysis for Policy Making: FAO VCA Tool 3.2  is a programme that has been developed for Value Chain Analysis to analyze and compare the effects of different policy options for agriculture and sustainable rural development. This tool allows you to create an accounting framework for value chain analysis and to compare different scenarios. It also helps you to build and handle your own database. More specifically, the software enables you to systematically gather, store and use data for the implementation of Cost-Benefit and Value Added Analyses. The FAO VCA-Tool software provides you with an effective alternative to spreadsheets, where you can [...]

Many countries develop or revise forest policies to keep abreast of changing circumstances and to enhance the value of forests to society. Experience from these processes shows that substantial changes have occurred in the past 20 years in both the content of forest policies and the ways in which they are developed or revised. This guide aims to support countries in planning and conducting forest policy development processes. Based on a review of practical experiences, it outlines the rationale  and purpose of a national forest policy and the different elements of the forest policy development process. This publication will help [...]

Politics and the political economy matter for whether and how reforms happen in developing as well as in developed countries. The World Bank as an institution and its individual country and task teams has been grappling with this issue for many years. The good practice framework described here is an attempt to summarize relevant analytic tools and approaches, to indicate how it can be used (more) systematically, and to make key lessons readily available. It also seeks to set out how such tools can be used in a way that is problem driven, that is, focused on specific issues and [...]

Food security is still largely misconceived as exclusively a matter of increased food production. As a result, comprehensive strategic approaches to hunger reduction have been insufficient. With this in mind, in 2004, through the FAO Netherlands Partnership Programme (FNPP), FAO began assisting several countries, namely Bhutan, Cambodia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zanzibar in integrating a specific and comprehensive food security and nutrition focus into their poverty reduction strategies or other national development frameworks. Through the fruitful collaboration between FAO and counterpart governments under the FNPP, each of the above-mentioned countries is now including food security and nutrition into major national policy [...]

This publication provides guidance on how to implement the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF) using an ecosystem approach to fisheries and aquaculture. The CCRF is a voluntary code covering all aspects of the management and development of fisheries and is designed to ensure sustainable development without adversely affecting the livelihoods of local communities that share the same resources as the fisheries. The authors outline the basic principles of the CCRF, describe concrete steps to be taken to use the ecosystem approach effectively, and recommend certain institutional changes and reforms that will be necessary if the potential of [...]

“Pure” conflict defined as the existence of competing interests between parties in absence of interests that are shared, is an anomaly in international relations where the defining feature of the relationship between states is mutual dependence. Such was the observation of Thomas Schelling, noted international economist, during the height of the Cold War. In the decades that have since transpired, globalizing developments in technology, communications, finance and trade have given rise to a world in which citizens, organizations and governments engage in millions of trans-national interactions on a daily basis. In the modern age, the need for developing mechanisms and skills to manage daily exchanges has grown, as [...]

The focus of this issue paper is on the global decision-making process, which can be seen as the development over time of a pattern of multilateral negotiations resulting in decisions, agreements and commitments which have implications for national policy making. Major socio-political and economic changes during the past decades set that context and had far-reaching effects for policy discourse and process. The surrounding political context influenced the evolution of the policy processes, what it produced and how these outputs were received. Part of this external influence has also affected the endogenous drivers operating in the process. This paper is an annotated [...]