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The key drivers in food value chain development are the entrepreneurs. They create firms that are profitable and competitive, create many jobs, link in many smallholders and producer organizations as suppliers, generate tax revenues, improve the food supply to consumers (lower price, higher quality), and have a positive impact on the wider environment in which they operate (e.g., reduce rural poverty). Applied to Africa, the approach is to develop a publication that synthesizes a combination of literature review and 12 carefully selected cases of particularly successful entrepreneurs. The document will be organized around four sub-themes (scaling up, youth, women, challenging BEEs). [...]

Using rural economy-wide impact simulation methods and cost-benefit analysis, this study examines the impacts of individual and combined social protection and agricultural interventions in Malawi on incomes, poverty and production. The goal of this analysis is to provide evidence on policy options to increase coordination and coherence between social protection and agricultural programmes, with the objective of reducing poverty, increasing incomes and enhancing agricultural production and productivity.    Research shows that significant income gains in rural areas can extend beyond the direct beneficiary households, as a result of consumption and other local linkages. Given the income gained by these vulnerable households, [...]

Countries in Africa have made renewed commitments to end hunger, such as in the Malabo Declaration of 2014, the SDGs of 2016 and other international and regional declarations. If these are supported by effective legislation, including constitutional protection, the future economic, social and cultural benefit to the continent is evident.

A la luz de las Directrices Voluntarias de Gobernanza de la Tierra (DVGT), el presente estudio analiza las buenas prácticas de gobernanza de la tenencia de la tierra, es decir, aquellas manifestaciones que demuestran la forma en que los actores locales, municipales y gubernamentales construyen y ponen en práctica mecanismos para el ejercicio de los derechos de tenencia de forma responsable, equitativa, transparente y sostenible. La tenencia supone un conjunto de derechos y deberes de una persona , o de un grupo, respecto a un determinado recurso, como la tierra, la pesca o el bosque.

In many countries, pastoralism has historically been practiced in areas that are now partitioned by international boundaries. This is a major barrier to sustainable resource management and to pastoral development. However, there are examples from around the world of efforts to facilitate transboundary movements and transboundary ecosystem management by pastoralists. This report examines how pastoral mobility has been impacted by the creation of unnatural boundaries within their landscapes and how societies cope with these constraints through legal or informal arrangements. Also available in French.

The WTO has objectives such as lowering and elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers in international trade, improvement of trade transparency and predictability, trade facilitation, discouraging of unfair trade practices. For this purpose, the WTO member’s governments apply various trade policy instruments in accordance with WTO rules. The WTO member’s business can greatly benefit from application by government of the WTO instruments that facilitate trade and protect from unfair competition. Moreover, the business itself can directly use some of these instruments for better market access, in particular transparency instruments, or in cooperation with government get support or protection provided in [...]

This review aims to provide countries and other stakeholders with relevant background and knowledge related to the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA) decision. It introduces the KJWA decision and further developments resulting from the 48th sessions of the subsidiary bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), provides a brief overview of the UNFCCC, and describes how the Convention addresses agriculture. It then looks at the subsidiary bodies and the seven constituted bodies under the Convention: the Consultative Group of Experts on National Communications from Parties not included in Annex I to the Convention, the Least [...]

This publication explores agricultural investment funds as a vehicle for financing agricultural businesses and projects. It looks at the capital needs of the different agricultural actors along the agricultural value chain and taking into consideration investment funds involving all kinds of investors (private, public as well as joint initiatives) and investment objectives. The publication draws heavily from the FAO 2010 publication “Agricultural Investment Funds for Developing Countries”, which was developed from an FAO-ConCAP research study that identified a broad range of investment funds that target agriculture in developing and transitioning countries. The identified funds were classified according to various criteria [...]

This paper summarizes evidence on six perceptions associated with cash transfer programming, using eight rigorous evaluations conducted on large-scale government unconditional cash transfers in sub-Saharan Africa under the Transfer Project. Specifically, it investigates if transfers: 1) induce higher spending on alcohol or tobacco; 2) are fully consumed (rather than invested); 3) create dependency (reduce participation in productive activities); 4) increase fertility; 5) lead to negative community-level economic impacts (including price distortion and inflation); and 6) are fiscally unsustainable. The paper presents evidence refuting each claim, leading to the conclusion that these perceptions—insofar as they are utilized in policy debates—undercut potential [...]

Almost 88 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion youth live in developing countries. Globally, young people account for approximately 24 percent of the working poor. Although the world’s youth population is expected to grow, employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for young women and men remain limited – particularly for those living in economically stagnant rural areas of developing countries. Hence, creating more productive and beneficial jobs for the rural youth is particularly urgent.  To address this challenge, FAO launched the Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for decent rural employment. The overall objective of ICA is to help country create more and better employment [...]