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This rapid capacity assessment tool aims to help practitioners (such as government agencies, youth organizations, or development partners) to carry out a multi-stakeholder assessment of existing and needed capacities to engage and empower youth to carry out and benefit from responsible investment in agriculture and food systems. It is designed to support the application of the CFS Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (CFS-RAI), with a particular focus on principle four (“Engage and Empower Youth”). The tool addresses the different systemic dimensions of capacity development and focuses on: the institutional set-up for agricultural investment related policy processes; policies, [...]

The UN and the Somali Government launched the Programme on Youth Employment in 2015, with the objective of creating employment opportunities for youth between 16 and 35 years through vocational education, enterprise training, and the rehabilitation of infrastructure in high potential sectors of the economy. Alongside this initiative, FAO is working with the Ministry of Fisheries at Federal and State levels to implement the 5.3 million Euro project No piracy: Alternatives for youth living in coastal communities of Puntland, Galmudug and Mogadishu, also known as Coastal Communities Against Piracy (CCAP) Project. As the name suggests, the EU-funded project, launched in [...]

Each year, rural areas lose a promising share of their workforce, as youth leave their homes and migrate to cities or move abroad in search of a better future. FAO, together with the Tunisian Government and the Italian Development Cooperation, supports young Tunisian entrepreneurs in rural areas through the provision of trainings, technical support and equipment.  

The RuMiT (Rural Migration in Tunisia) research addresses the determinants of migration and mobility, the patterns and types of rural youth outmigration and the impact of rural youth migration on rural livelihoods and societies in origin regions in Tunisia. The research used a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative methods, providing comparative insights into: international and internal migrants and non-migrants; pre- and post-2011 migrants; households with and without migrants.  Main results show that migrants from rural areas are increasingly highly educated and leaving to pursue their studies abroad. This particularly applies to women, who also register a decrease in marriage-related migration. [...]

Through the Purchase from Africans for Africa programme (PAA Africa), the FAO has been engaging in providing technical support to African Governments for building adapted and operational public food procurement methods from smallholder farmers for school feeding. The methods of public procurement fostered by PAA Africa were developed in complex contexts of food insecurity and malnutrition, presenting occasional food deficit and / or chronic food insecurity, low agricultural productivity, institutional fragility and lack of governance, with population relying on food aid to overcome food insecurity. The publication aims at presenting best practices and lessons learned along of five years of [...]

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.

Organic producers have new opportunities to supply their products to the markets as the demand for safe product is increasing in Asia and in the world. The high cost and paperwork associated with the third-party certification hamper smallholder farmers to benefit from this trend. At the same time, consumers are faced with difficulties to trust organic or safe products in the market. In response, a pilot project in Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Cambodia addressed the certification and marketing issues through the promoting of Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS). Through a training of trainers (ToT) 13 participants (46 percent women) from [...]

School feeding programmes are recognized as a key part of food assistance and relief in emergency and development programmes.  They are principally concerned with transfer of food to school to alleviate hunger, meet daily consumption needs and encourage attendance and retention.  Home-Grown School Feeding programmes (HGSF) in particular have received attention in recent years because of the links to agricultural development and have therefore been widely viewed as a means to address food insecurity while promoting rural development goals in Africa. Locally procured school meals, form an important part of HGSF programmes, and when coupled with food and nutrition education (FNE), [...]

This document summarizes the online discussion Youth employment in agriculture as a solid solution to ending hunger and poverty in Africa, which was held on the FAO Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum) from 16 July to 10 August 2018. The discussion was organized to gather views in advance of the 20-21 August regional conference “Youth Employment in Agriculture as a Solid Solution to Ending Hunger and Poverty in Africa: Engaging through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Entrepreneurship” in Kigali, Rwanda. The major thematic areas of the conference focused on youth and entrepreneurship, digital innovation, and [...]

Political disputes and the deterioration of the economic and security situation in Libya continue to threaten the agricultural sector and its infrastructure. The cereal sector and, above all, wheat production, the most important crop for food security, are particularly affected. To improve food security conditions, farmers need to have access to improved seed, especially wheat seed. The wheat seed assistant programme was implemented to help small farmers in selected governorates to increase wheat production and productivity by distributing improved seed to producer households affected by the political situation, and by providing training and extension. Find more Project Highlights here.