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This guide constitutes a tool intended for actors on the ground in Niger. It aims to contribute to the improvement of pastoral land governance and in particular to the prevention and resolution of conflicts and to the development of inclusive consultation processes. The guide is unique because it is developed in collaboration with one for the breeders in Niger. It will be a concrete tool to help actors resolve conflicts related to access to natural resources at the local level.Also available in Arabic and French

Livestock portfolios play a significant role, as an income and consumption buffering strategy during severe droughts. The buffering potential of livestock varies by income quintile, length of the climate shock, animal species, and region. Households face trade-offs between using livestock assets to smooth the effect of the shock or protect future income generation. Livestock oriented resilience interventions should carefully consider the relationships among species, droughts, and socioeconomic groups. This study employs a unique dataset combining socioeconomic and livestock asset data from 150 000 households with a multi-scalar drought index.

The dairy sector is an example of the challenges that food supply chains have faced due to COVID-19. The pandemic has impacted the sector depending on countries’ trade profiles, per capita income, and market structure. The study reveals that the pandemic has accelerated on-going structural changes taking place in the dairy sector. Despite the preliminary nature of the results, they provide important insights to inform sectorial policy discussions.

Acknowledging the zoonotic nature of SARS-CoV-2, investigations about potential animal hosts are of great importance to improve understanding of COVID-19 epidemiology and identify susceptible animal species as well as possible transmission between humans and animals. Positive findings by a polymerase chain reaction in dogs, cats, farmed mink, and wild feline in zoos have raised concerns about the possible role livestock and companion animals could play in the amplification and spread of the virus. Several studies looking at the binding affinity of SARS-CoV-2 receptor in different animal species hypothesized a probable wide range of animal hosts especially mammals. Field studies need to [...]

Dromedary camels are the main reservoir for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Genetic analysis of MERS-CoV isolates from humans and dromedaries revealed that direction of transmission is from camels to humans. Furthermore, several studies reported evidence of camel infection by other human CoVs, animal CoVs or unknown coronaviruses. There is evidence of recombination between different betacoronaviruses in camels. Analysis of the Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 receptor (ACE2) binding in dromedaries predicted potential binding affinity to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) receptor binding domain (RBD), however some other studies predicted the contrary. With the pandemic spread of [...]

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 [...]

In recognition of the well-understood challenges with promoting rural and agricultural finance, the need for a more systemic approach to promoting financial inclusion is gaining traction in the thinking and programming approaches of the community of practice. Within this system-level view, the concept of de-risking the overall operating environment of agricultural value chains is recognized as a critically important factor. Accordingly, numerous project-based and stand-alone “de-risking” arrangements have recently been launched or are at various stages of design throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The generation of evidence of performance, impact and cost effectiveness is critical to validating the relevance of these types of [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted digital financial inclusion trends across the world in many and complex ways. In developing and emerging contexts, this crisis also holds the potential to propel an unprecedented acceleration in the process of financial digitization and turn out to be a game-changer for digital financial inclusion. The aim of this study is to illustrate the opportunities and risks associated with the surge in uptake and use of digital financial service, providing ideas on how to leverage the paradigm changes affecting the overall approach and perspective towards digital financial services – on the part of various stakeholders – [...]

La réponse à la demande accrue de produits alimentaires accentue la pression exercée au niveau mondial sur les ressources que sont les eaux, les terres et les sols. L’agriculture a un rôle à jouer dans l’allégement de cette pression et dans la concrétisation des objectifs en matière de climat et de développement. Des pratiques agricoles durables peuvent déboucher sur des améliorations directes de l’état des terres, des sols et de l’eau, mais elles peuvent aussi être bénéfiques aux écosystèmes et réduire les émissions issues de la terre. Tout cela nécessite que nous disposions d’informations précises et que nous révisions radicalement [...]

Food system demands have increased exponentially in recent decades and are estimated to continue growing as global populations increase and economic affluence expands. However, the very foundation of a productive system – healthy lands and soils and clean water supply – is already under immense pressure. In fact, by the most credible estimates, up to 52% of global agricultural lands are now moderately to severely degraded, with millions of hectares per year degrading to the point they are abandoned by the land manager. The loss of productive land, coupled with increased food demand, pushes agriculture to be the primary driver [...]