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Many national legal frameworks still do not include laws and measures specifically intended to tackle climate change in the agriculture sectors. However, national laws and institutional frameworks are necessary for good governance and can operate to support the implementation of national policy and international commitments, including on climate change. Indeed, Target 16.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals calls for the promotion of the rule of law, and the assurance of equal access to justice for all. This is both an important stand-alone goal and an enabling goal for the realization of the transformative 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development‎. Furthermore, the [...]

Blue Bonds are a subset of the Green Bond Market, a $200 billion global market of environmental bonds that has been growing rapidly. Because they are part of this environmental market, compliance of the underlying projects with appropriate green bond standards is required. This is what sets them apart from ordinary or vanilla bonds. Broadly, these standards address 3 concerns of investors, beyond financial requirements: Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG). Find more Blue Growth guidance notes here.

The FIRST Programme aims to support the governments of targeted countries to strengthen the enabling policy and institutional environment for food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture (FNSSA). The programme is designed as a demand-based “policy assistance” facility which has its roots in the long-term partnership between FAO and the European Union and aims to add value to both partners’ actions at the country level.The programme approach of embedding a policy officer within partner country administrations, constitutes the best option for building trusted relationships to support improved policy processes. FIRST has created a high level of trust with government partners [...]

The Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines) are the first international instrument dedicated entirely to the small-scale fisheries sector. While the implementation of the SSF Guidelines will require legal and regulatory adjustments beyond national fisheries legislation to ensure political and legislative coherence and fully reflect the breadth of their provisions, the fundamental function of fisheries law in a sustainable use, management, and the development of small-scale fisheries is indisputable. Appropriate fisheries legislation provides the strongest possible framework for inclusive, participatory fisheries governance and resource management by providing a coherent basis [...]

The Food and Nutrition Security Impact, Resilience, Sustainability and Transformation (FIRST) Programme represents a partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the European Union (EU). In 2018, the partnership agreed on the need to have a policy effectiveness analysis conducted in most of the FIRST countries. As policy implementation rather than formulation is repeatedly raised as one of Pakistan’s challenges, this assessment considered the implementation challenges of specific policy processes relevant to the FAO-EU partnership in the country, rather than the entire suite of relevant policies. It considered the necessary conditions to move forward and [...]

Decisions over tenure – who gets access to land, fisheries, and forests, for how long, and under what conditions – have important implications for people’s livelihoods. Spatial planning procedures can have a considerable impact on the legitimate tenure rights of the respective rights holders and, in the long term, can affect livelihoods.This technical guide on regulated spatial planning and tenure acknowledges this link and provides guidance on the importance of recognizing legitimate tenure rights in spatial planning processes. Strengthening civic spaces in spatial planning processes focuses on the practical challenges of implementing spatial planning objectives and considering peoples’ tenure over [...]

La presente guía ha sido desarrollada con los elementos brindados por lo líderes indígenas y pescadores indígenas por medio de la APICA y representantes de las instituciones estatales dedicadas a la desarrollo de la pesca en los países centroamericanos , siendo priorizados y consensuados por los representantes indígenas centroamericanos para valorar la gobernanza de la pesca indígena para la afirmación de la gestión territorial en función del crecimiento económico, la inclusión social y protección ambiental. Only available in Spanish.

In developing countries, further progress of irrigation is essential for increasing food security and farmers’ income. However, developing small-scale schemes remains a challenge due to multiple factors that must be taken into consideration, such as diversity of small-scale schemes, a large number of water users, social disharmony over the water use, varying water demands of multi-cropping systems, heterogeneity of equipment over the scheme. Furthermore, on-farm irrigation development has a major role in enhancing Agricultural Water Management (AWM). The previous development methods considered the improvement of single-factor productivity, but agriculture is undergoing a global shift from the single objective of outputs [...]

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 Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) and, in the African context, the African Union Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges in Africa (AU Declaration) and its Framework and Guidelines on [...]

This tool is intended to help countries evaluate their forest tenure systems, particularly those that facilitate participation of non-state actors in forestry, including co-management regimes, community forestry, smallholder forestry, large holder forestry, or company concessions granted on State lands. It uses the internationally endorsed Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT) as its basis. Forest tenure review may be conducted in the context of policy or legal reform, to inform Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) policy formulation, to improve understanding of a specific tenure system that is under-performing, or to [...]