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Improving the gender-responsiveness of design and delivery of rural finance interventions through innovative approaches and mechanisms is important for promoting rural women’s economic empowerment. This document highlights practical and actionable approaches from the sector in order to guide the work of practitioners engaging at country level to pursue the above objective. Part I of this Technical Guidance Note provides an overview of the main barriers and constraints that inhibit rural women’s financial inclusion. Part II offers a step-by-step approach to analysing the state of gender equality within a specific country or context, with the purpose of diagnosing potential entry points [...]

Extending the coverage of social insurance schemes to rural areas of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is challenging because of high administrative costs and a lack of necessary capacity. As a result agriculture workers tend to be left out of these schemes. This research report aims to understand the main administrative barriers and capacity constraints that may hinder the coverage of agriculture workers in social insurance schemes, and suggest possible strategies that could be considered to address them. Also available in Arabic

In developing and emerging contexts, youth of all ages and backgrounds face substantial and multidimensional challenges when seeking to access the financial services they need to take adequate care of several aspects of their personal and professional lives. These barriers to financial inclusion represent a core development constraint that limits the capability of the youth to unlock their true potential as entrepreneurs, business innovators, and – ultimately – as agents of growth and change in developing contexts. From the perspective of a financial inclusion practitioner, the ability to assess these barriers with insight and precision – as well as being able [...]

The aim of this publication is to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of agricultural financing for youth in developing and emerging countries, underlining the trends, core challenges, opportunities, innovative solutions and initiatives associated with this undertaking. The study makes use of the latest and most relevant literature on youth finance, while also relying extensively on insights and case studies that have emerged during the development of a series of FAO country-level assessments on the state of agricultural finance for youth. Building on the analysis of this data and experience, the study aims to provide a range of recommendations and [...]

In this paper, we propose a simple methodology to select a limited number of geographical areas to prioritize for commodity-specific investments in Uganda. Similar to other approaches for prioritizing investments geographically, the basic idea behind the proposed method is that districts with high agro-ecological potential, that are also far from their potential and have high levels of poverty, should be prioritized for commodity-specific investments as they are where investments are likely to have the highest impact. The methodology then proposes an iterative elimination algorithm to provide a list of suggested districts that rank high in all dimensions.The results highlight that [...]

Countries’ varying natural resource endowments are vital in explaining international trade. Traditional trade theory suggests that differences in technology and factor endowments lead countries to specialize and export certain goods or services in which they have a comparative advantage.The computable general equilibrium (CGE) model simulations used in this paper aim to explain agricultural trade patterns and show how agricultural trade would change in response to productivity, infrastructure and institutions improvements and trade cost changes from regional and global trade liberalization. A set of nine scenarios is used to explore the effects of productivity, transport costs, non-tariff barriers (NTB), and border [...]

Cette note de recommandations pour des politiques publiques au Niger a été élaborée dans le cadre du projet AgrInvest-Systèmes Alimentaires «favoriser l’investissement efficace et inclusif du secteur privé dans les systèmes agroalimentaires». L’objectif de la présente note est de formuler des propositions de politiques publiques facilitant les investissements durables dans la filière oignon au Niger. La note vise aussi à identifier des stratégies pour l’engagement de plusieurs parties prenantes dans la mise en œuvre de ces interventions.

Paraguay mostró un crecimiento económico importante entre el 2010 y el 2019, a pesar de cierta contracción en el 2019, en el cual la agricultura contribuyó significativamente. Las proyecciones apuntan a una recuperación económica desde el año 2021, pero surge la pregunta de cuáles podrían ser los motores del nuevo crecimiento.Las carencias de la agricultura, principalmente en la agricultura familiar campesina, son preocupantes. Falta nueva inversión en infraestructura productiva, asistencia técnica, tecnología, créditos y acceso a insumos e implementos modernos. La inversión pública no solo ha sido reducida, sino que pareciera que la agricultura no entra notablemente en los planes [...]

This is the policy brief of a paper that investigates whether an increase in exogenous income through the Child Grants model of the Social Cash Transfer programme in Zambia fosters economic inclusion among rural women.

The Agricultural Outlook 2022-2031 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. It brings together the commodity, policy and country expertise of both organisations as well as input from collaborating member countries to provide an annual assessment of the prospects for the coming decade of national, regional and global agricultural commodity markets. The publication consists of 11 Chapters; Chapter 1 covers agricultural and food markets; Chapter 2 provides regional outlooks and the remaining chapters are dedicated to individual commodities.