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In the world of development, partnerships developed through Multi-Stakeholder Platforms (MSPs) produce results which exceed stakeholder expectations, as the “open atmosphere” promotes shared knowledge and lessons learnt, creating lasting outcomes at all levels. These results are a by-product of a holistic approach to development and underlying consensus between partners.Last updated date 17/07/2020

FAO and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH have been providing support to the Western Balkans region to promote progress on gender equality, with a focus on measuring the proportion of countries where the legal framework guarantees women’s equal rights to land ownership and/or control.Last updated date 24/07/2020 Also available in Macedonian Serbian Montenegrin Albanian Bosnian

Why land rights matter: Tenure is essential to the livelihoods of billions of people where access to land and natural resources can mean the difference between having food and going hungry. People with weak, insecure tenure rights risk losing their means to self-support without access to land, fisheries and forests. When women have weaker tenure rights caused by discrimination in laws and customs, tenure rights can help promote, support and document fair and transparent processes aimed at ensuring improved access to natural resources for all concerned.

CFS Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) Subscribe here!

Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) and smart contracts provide a unique opportunity to bring greater efficiency, transparency and traceability to the exchange of value and information in the agriculture sector. By utilising digital records, cryptography and the disintermediation of transaction processing and data storage, DLTs can improve both agricultural supply chains and rural development interventions in a number of ways. The technology has the potential to simplify and integrate agricultural supply chains, enhance food safety, facilitate access to trade finance and other types of agricultural financial services, improve market transparency, provide greater legal certainty to land-tenure systems and strengthen accountability for [...]

By means of a Transversal Project, co-funded by the EU and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) coordinates, supports and consolidates the implementation of the EU Land Governance Programme.The European Union Land Governance Programme funds 18 individual country-level projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America, all of which address tenure issues, and are implemented alongside various partners, among which are government agencies, civil society organizations, bilateral and multilateral organizations and private contractors. All project activities are carried out within the framework of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible [...]

In recent decades, concerns have grown around the environmental impact of the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector, more specifically on the impact of agricultural activities on biodiversity. Since the introduction of the Aichi targets, released by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010, the United Nations have been empowered with greater influence on decision-making impacting biodiversity. The Biodiversity Integrated Assessment and Computation Tool (B-INTACT) uniquely seeks to provide a thorough biodiversity assessment of project-level activities in the AFOLU sector, taking on both a quantitative and a qualitative approach. Revised 4 June 2020: The name of the tool [...]

Biodiversity loss is accelerating at an unprecedented rate across the planet putting a great number of species on the brink of extinction. A decline in the plants, animals and micro-organisms threatens food security, sustainable development and the supply of vital ecosystem services. In order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, there is an urgent need to take action to halt biodiversity loss and consequently ecosystem degradation. Since the introduction of the Aichi targets, released by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010, the United Nations have been empowered with greater influence on decision-making impacting biodiversity. [...]

Biodiversity loss is accelerating at an unprecedented rate across the planet putting a great number of species on the brink of extinction. A decline in the plants, animals and micro-organisms threatens food security, sustainable development and the supply of vital ecosystem services. In order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, there is an urgent need to take action to halt biodiversity loss and consequently ecosystem degradation. Since the introduction of the Aichi targets, released by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2010, the United Nations have been empowered with greater influence on decision-making impacting biodiversity. [...]

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are continuously under the threat from the adverse effects of climate change and land degradation impacts. Land degradation directly increases CO2 emissions, contributing to climate change and vice versa. The LDN Target Setting Programme (TSP) of the UNCCD has substantially contributed to land degradation receiving the policy attention and securing political commitments for addressing the obvious and immediate threats of climate change and natural disasters to SIDS. It has strengthened the availability and accessibility of data for assessing land degradation and enabled SIDS to set specific measurable science-based targets. LDN provides the framework for the [...]