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Socio Economic Research and Analysis (SERA)

Socio Economic Research and Analysis

FAO recognizes the importance of rigorous evidence to guide policy choices and investments to achieve the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. The Socio-Economic Research and Analysis (SERA) Team of the Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP) supports Member States to identify policies and programmes to foster resilient and inclusive agri-food system transformations through the generation, coordination, and dissemination of rigorous evidence.

The hallmark of the SERA team's strategic research agenda is an explicit focus on identifying policy options to address the socio-economic barriers and constraints faced by rural populations living in poverty or subject to other forms of structural vulnerability.

The team draws on a variety of methodological approaches and data sets, and leverages a range of strategic partnerships, to inform global and national policy debates on the importance of prioritizing inclusive approaches to rural development in the context of an increasingly uncertain world.

Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP)

Social Protection and Rural Development

IN FOCUS
The unjust climate

This report assembles an impressive set of data from 24 low- and middle-income countries in five world regions to measure the effects of climate change on rural women, youths and people living in poverty. It analyses socioeconomic data collected from 109 341 rural households (representing over 950 million rural people) in these 24 countries. These data are combined in both space and time with 70 years of georeferenced data on daily precipitation and temperatures. The data enable us to disentangle how different types of climate stressors affect people’s on-farm, off-farm and total incomes, labour allocations and adaptive actions, depending on their wealth, gender and age characteristics.

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Publications
Wellbeing dynamics in sub-Saharan Africa: a spatial perspective across territorial typologies
2025

Efforts to track welfare trends and spatially target interventions in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have been constrained by a lack of recurrent and sufficiently...

The agrifood-system wage gap and structural transformation: cross-country evidence
2025

This study examines how the gender pay gap in wage employment evolves during structural transformation. Using a multi-country dataset and decomposition...

Natural resources for resilient, inclusive rural transformation
2025

This paper examines the role of natural resources in fostering resilient and inclusive rural transformation. It reviews land and water availability...

Climate adaptation, perceived resilience, and household wellbeing: Comparative evidence from Kenya and Zambia
2025

This study examines how climate-adaptive agricultural practices influence perceived resilience and household wellbeing in pastoralist Kenya and rain-fed...

News
FAO and World Bank discuss how sustainable agriculture can power Africa’s job agenda
03/11/2025

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) joined colleagues from the World Bank and the African Network of Agriculture Policy...

FAO and World Bank to discuss how sustainable agricultural practices can power Africa’s job agenda
30/10/2025

FAO will join colleagues from the World Bank at the 12th ANAPRI Stakeholders Conference, taking place from 4–6 November 2025 in Kigali, Rwanda....

CFS event highlights the role of data-driven evidence in building resilient food systems
24/10/2025

The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) convened a high-level event at FAO Headquarters on Leveraging data-driven evidence-base and frameworks...

10th SITES annual conference on development economics
15/09/2025

FAO participated in the 10th annual conference on development economics, organized by

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Launch Event of "The Unjust Climate" Report

05/03/2024