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The purpose of this Sourcebook is to provide advice on how to incorporate disaster risk reduction and resilience building into the watershed management process. As an increasingly heavier toll is exerted on agriculture and food systems by drought, floods, wildfires, and other extreme events, adopting risk reduction and management practices must become an integral part of watershed management. While the steps involved to incorporate resilience building are similar to those routinely carried out in integrated watershed management, this Sourcebook stresses the importance of understanding disaster and climate risks, adopting a landscape approach and targeting vulnerable groups (e.g. women, youth, indigenous [...]

Réalisé conjointement par les secrétariats de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture (FAO) et de la Convention des Nations Unies sur la lutte contre la désertification (CNULCD), avec la contribution de multiples parties prenantes, ce guide technique traite de l’intégration des Directives volontaires pour une gouvernance responsable des régimes fonciers applicables aux terres, aux pêches et aux forêts dans le contexte de la sécurité alimentaire nationale (DV) dans la mise en oeuvre de la CNULCD et de la neutralité de la dégradation des terres (NDT), ouvrant ainsi un nouveau chapitre dans les efforts en cours pour lutter contre [...]

Young people are key agents of change, with enormous innovation potential. FAO recognizes that youth are already at the frontline to build more sustainable agrifood systems and are best placed to rejuvenate the sector, acquire the knowledge and skills needed to innovate, uptake new technologies, and spearhead the digital transformation. The Organization provides support to countries to develop more youth-inclusive policies, strategies, investments and programmes, in order to enhance the overall well-being of young women and men. This compendium of good practices brings together snapshots of selected FAO’s youth-specific projects, activities and products in support of the Rural Youth Action [...]

The State of Land and Water Resources (SOLAW) in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region is part of a FAO flagship series launched in 2011. Being one of the most land and water scarce region in the world, the preservation of land and water resources is of critical importance to ensure food security and address the increased food demand. The publication aims at providing policy makers, institutions and other stakeholders a comprehensive overview of the current situation for land and water and the effect of climate change and urbanization on food production facilitating informed decision-making. The report provides [...]

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a comprehensive system that requires thorough consideration of local climate, natural environment, market demand, economic and cultural environment. FAO introduced CSA at the Hague Conference on Agricultural, Food Security and Climate Change in 2010 and has been strongly supporting it since then. The development of CSA in China contributes to reaching its carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality in China by 2060.This publication introduces China's CSA development and provides policy proposals. It contains four sections: the background and development status of China's CSA; practices and achievements of China's CSA, including analysing case studies such as [...]

The Climate Risk Toolbox (CRTB) was developed to support climate-resilient project design. The tool is an open-access resource, hosted on the Hand-in-Hand Geospatial platform, allowing users to obtain a climate risk screening and report containing climate resilient measures, crucial to strengthen project formulation at early stages. The CRTB complies with requirements of international financial institutions and can be used by development practitioners for high-level screening at an early stage of planning processes or project design.This manual is a comprehensive guidance material to support users in navigating the online tool, including all the technical specifications behind the tool. This guidance document [...]

If the world is to transition towards agrifood systems that are more sustainable and equitable, small-scale production systems will be key to progress. Large parts of the world depend on small-scale systems for maintaining food security and nutrition (Lowder, Sánchez and Bertini, 2021; Herrero et al., 2017). Despite this centrality, neither small-scale production systems nor small-scale producers have received due recognition under predominant agrifood systems paradigms.This paper analyzes the diversity of small-scale producers and demonstrates how understanding small-scale production can have consequences for how policies and investments are directed and how they impact small-scale producer livelihoods. The diverse roles and [...]

Le Cadre de gestion environnementale et sociale a pour objectif d’améliorer l’application de l’approche fondée sur les droits humains etdes autres principes directeurs des PCCNUDD dans les programmes de la FAO. L’objectif est de faireen sorte que les êtres humains et l’environnement soient protégés des éventuelles incidences négatives des programmes et projets de la FAO. Le Cadre permet également de veiller à ce que toutes les parties prenantes aient amplement l’occasion de participer aux activités de ces programmes et projets et aient accès à des voies de communication efficaces pour faire part de leurs préoccupations au sujet de ces derniers. [...]

This report provides an overview of the potential use of wood residues as feedstock for bioenergy production as part of the transition towards a sustainable and circular forest bioeconomy. While data and examples are abundant from developed countries, a specific focus will be put on the role and potential of wood residue-based energy in developing countries. The study is structured around the following four main objectives, each corresponding to a chapter: - define key terms and concepts related to wood residues and bioenergy value chains (Chapter 2); - characterize the status and trends in renewable energy, modern bioenergy and the forest-based bioeconomy and [...]

This document presents the methodology used to build the EX-Ante Carbon Balance Tool version 9 (EX-ACT). It describes in detail the main logic behind the tool, the tool structure, and the underlying equations and parameters used to calculate the carbon balance. EX-ACT is a land-use-based accounting system developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to evaluate the effects of the interventions in agriculture on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon stock changes expressed as carbon balance. The carbon balance comprises changes in GHG emissions and carbon stock changes in the five quantifiable carbon pools: above-ground [...]