Results
Tool
2012
Guiding Principles for Responsible Contract Farming Operations
This document presents a set of guiding principles that are conducive to responsible contract farming operations. It is intended to serve as guidance for farmers and buyers engaged in contractual relationships, in order to promote good business practices and maintain an atmosphere of trust and respect that is essential if contract farming is to prove effective. This brief is a complement to other publications available on FAO’s Contract Farming Resource Centre (www.fao.org/ag/ags/contract-farming).
Issue paper
2012
Decent Rural Employment for Food Security: A Case for Action
Identifies the links between decent employment and food security and shows how improving policy coherence between employment and agricultural initiatives and investing more in the promotion of decent rural employment will contribute highly to the interlinked challenges of fighting rural poverty and feeding a growing world population in a sustainable way.
Issue paper
2011
Reforming forest tenure. Issues, principles and process
Secure tenure is an important prerequisite for sustainable forest management. More diversified tenure systems could provide a basis for improving forest management and local livelihoods, particularly where the State has insufficient capacity to manage forests. In the past decade many countries have initiated efforts to reform their tenure arrangements for forests and forest land, devolving some degree of access and management from the State to others, mainly households, private c ompanies and communities. This publication provides practical guidance for policy-makers and others concerned with addressing forest tenure reform. Drawing from many sources, including forest tenure assessments carried out by FAO [...]
Report
2011
The State of Food and Agriculture 2010-11: Women in Agriculture. Closing the Gender Gap for Development
Women make significant contributions to the rural economy in all developing country regions. Their roles differ across regions, yet they consistently have less access than men to the resources and opportunities they need to be more productive. Increasing women’s access to land, livestock, education, financial services, extension, technology and rural employment would boost their productivity and generate gains in terms of agricultural production, food security, economic growth and social welfare. Closing the gender gap in agricultural inputs alone could lift 100–150 million people out of hunger.
No blueprint exists for closing the gender gap, but some basic principles are universal: governments, [...]
Issue paper
2011
Rural Women’s Access to Financial Services: Credit, Savings and Insurance. ESA Working Paper No. 11-07
This paper reviews rural women’s access to financial services, a key factor of successful rural development strategies. Designing appropriate financial products for women to be able to save, borrow and insure is essential to strengthen women’s role as producers and widen the economic opportunities available to them. For this purpose it is essential to understand how context-specific legal rights, social norms, family responsibilities and women’s access to and control over other resources shape their need for capital and their ability to obtain it. The paper argues that it is important that development strategies that aim to boost rural women’s productive [...]
Case study
2010
Promoting employment and entrepreneurship for vulnerable youths in West Bank and Gaza Strip
FAO - in partnership with the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education and Higher Education, the Ministry of Youth and Sport, Youth Development Association and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) - has recently published a case study report on “Promoting Employment and Entrepreneurship for Vulnerable Youths in West Bank and Gaza Strip”
Youth in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) face enormous challenges related to occupation, conflict, deep rural poverty, food insecurity and lack of extracurricular activities. Israeli closure policies, the construction of the Separation Wall, land confiscation, limited access to [...]
Tool
2010
Guidance on how to address decent rural employment in FAO country activities
This guidance document will: Introduce the concepts of rural employment and decent work (RE&DW). Acknowledge the centrality of RE&DW for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• Affirm FAO’s comparative advantages in dealing with RE&DW and identify the main areas of intervention
• Provide a summary of the results of FAO’s “Self-Assessment on Employment and Decent Work
• Suggest examples of concrete actions that FAO country offices could consider to promote RE&DW w ithin their existing work programmes
• Encourage the creation of links with International Labour Organization (ILO) field offices and facilitate partnerships and the identification of synergies.
Report
2010
The State of Food Insecurity in the World: Addressing Food Insecurity in Protracted Crises
The number of undernourished people in the world remains unacceptably high at close to one billion in 2010 despite an expected decline – the first in 15 years. This decline is largely attributable to a more favourable economic environment in 2010 – particularly in developing countries – and the fall in both international and domestic food prices since 2008.
FAO estimates that a total of 925 million people are undernourished in 2010 compared with 1.023 billion in 2009. Most of the decrease was in Asia, with 80 million fewer hungry, but progress was also made in sub-Saharan Africa, where 12 million [...]
Tool
2009
Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools
It is a simple methodology for teaching vulnerable children and young people about farming and how to take care of themselves. It uses a “living classroom" approach in which the students observe the crops throughout the growing season with the help of a facilitator. Agricultural topics are linked to life skills so that when children talk about how to protect their plants from diseases they also learn how to protect themselves from diseases and other adverse conditions. The school bui lds the students’ self-confidence and problem solving skills by having them decide for themselves what steps are required, for example, [...]
Report
2009
The state of food and agriculture. Livestock in the balance
Livestock contribute 40 percent of the global value of agricultural output and support the livelihoods and food security of almost a billion people. Rapidly rising incomes and urbanization, combined with underlying population growth, are driving demand for meat and other animal products in many developing countries.
These changes and the speed with which they are occurring have created systemic risks for livelihoods, human and animal health and the environment. To meet the challenges and constraints of the twenty-first century, the livestock sector requires appropriate institutions, research, development interventions and governance that reflect the diversity within the sector and the multiple demands [...]