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The report “Transforming the livestock sector through the sustainable development goals”  examines the sector’s interaction with each of the SDGs, as well as the potential synergies, trade-offs, and complex interlinkages involved. The publication is intended to serve as a reference framework for Member States as they move forward to realize livestock’s potentially major contribution to the Agenda 2030. 

Fisheries and aquaculture support the livelihoods of millions of people around the world. In rural and coastal communities they often play a key role for a society’s culture and identity. As these communities know well, fish is also a healthy and nutritious food, with the potential to feed our growing planet. But as the population grows, the demand for fish increases, and our natural resources are increasingly stressed. Sustainable management and development is crucial to preserving these resources for future generations.  Like the Green Economy principles that preceded it, FAO’s Blue Growth Initiative emphasizes the three pillars of sustainable development – [...]

The Partnership note aims at providing readers with an overview of the work carried out by the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – one of the largest organizations of informal workers in the world– in bolstering financial inclusion for poor women, both in India (where SEWA is based) and abroad. The four-decade experience that SEWA can boast in providing financial services to poor women around the world - together with the unique financial innovations that the organization has developed through trial-and-error for its members - make SEWA an extremely interesting case study within the domain of development finance.

After decades of progress, hunger is on the rise again. The figures from The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017 report show an increase in the absolute number of people affected by chronic hunger and a rise in the global prevalence of undernourishment. Globally, the number of chronically malnourished people is estimated to have increased to 815 million from 777 million in 2015. In 2017, four countries faced a very real threat of famine and many more saw increasing numbers of people facing severe hunger. Protecting livelihoods by providing emergency agricultural assistance from the onset of a [...]

Many social protection programmes, including cash transfers, public works programmes and asset transfers, target women as main beneficiaries or recipients of benefits. Extending social protection to rural populations has great potential for fostering rural women’s economic empowerment. However, to tap into this potential, more needs to be done. There is much scope for making social protection policies and programmes more gender sensitive and for better aligning them with agricultural and rural development policies to help address gender inequalities. Recognizing this potential and capitalizing on existing evidence, FAO seeks to enhance the contribution of social protection to gender equality and women’s empowerment [...]

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) make a significant contribution to growth and socio-economic development in countries and regions around the globe. The widespread adoption and integration of ICTs has reduced information and transaction costs, improved service delivery, created new jobs, generated new revenue streams, and helped conserve resources. ICTs have also transformed the way businesses, people and governments work, interact, and communicate.  ICT innovation is also revolutionizing the agriculture and food sectors. In developed economies, innovations such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, data analytics and block-chain are changing the way agriculture does business. Remote sensors collect data on soil [...]

With the aim of eradicating poverty and hunger, FAO provides countries with evidence-based policy support to design social protection programmes that are nutrition-sensitive, risk-informed and shock-responsive, and advocates to expand social protection coverage to poor and vulnerable rural people. FAO, together with its main partner UNICEF, has been generating evidence on the productive impacts of social protection in rural areas and supporting the design of broader rural development strategies  that combine social protection programmes and agricultural interventions.  This flyer presents success stories from Zambia and Lesotho, showing how social protection can change the life of rural people, lifting them out [...]

When poor rural people are part of an organized group or network, it multiplies their chances of escaping the poverty trap for good. Through cooperatives, producer organizations and networks, they can improve their bargaining power and access to markets. They can also participate in and influence decision-making processes and the formulation of national policies that affect their livelihoods. By working closely with countries, FAO helps to empower poor people, including women and youth, and strengthen rural organizations, such as cooperative and producer organizations. FAO firmly believes that by increasing poor people’s access to resources, services and markets, and by giving [...]

Setting nutrition guidelines and standards has been recommended internationally to ensure that school meals are in line with children’s nutrition needs and adequate to their context. This report provides a descriptive overview of the situation of school meal nutrition guidelines and standards in 33 low and middle-income countries as reported through a global survey. The report identifies key aspects to consider for stakeholders who are planning to develop or update their guidelines and standards in the context of school meal programmes.

There is a growing awareness to the role that natural resources, such as water, land, forests and environmental amenities, play in our lives. There are many competing uses for natural resources, and society is challenged to manage them for improving social well-being. Furthermore, there may be dire consequences to natural resources mismanagement. Renewable resources, such as water, land and the environment are linked, and decisions made with regard to one may affect the others. Policy and management of natural resources now require interdisciplinary approaches including natural and social sciences to correctly address our society preferences.  This series provides a collection of works containing most recent findings on economics, [...]