Violent conflict has increased in recent decades. The number of people worldwide who live in settings where conflict and violence are a daily occurrence is increasing. By 2030, it is estimated that more than half of all people living in poverty will be found in countries affected by high levels of violence. These conflict dynamics have a negative impact on households’ food security. Agriculture, natural resources, food security and nutrition can be sources of peace or conflict, crisis or recovery, tragedy or healing. Underpinning this is ensuring that the Organization’s projects and interventions are conflict-sensitive so that all stakeholders understand the dynamics of the diverse contexts in which FAO works. Especially in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, we need to make sure that our work avoids contributing to divisions, disputes and violent conflict, and does no harm. All that we do – both by ourselves and through partnerships – should follow this approach. We can also identify where FAO can positively contribute to social cohesion and peace – and these efforts must be rooted in robust theories of change. FAO is placing increasing emphasis on ensuring that our interventions make a positive contribution to peace – an objective shared across the United Nations system, and increasingly a requirement of our partners and donors. The focus of this how-to guide is to elaborate the pathways through which the Organization can optimize deliberate contributions to peace, and inform the design, adaptation and impact measurement of its interventions. In recent years, FAO has developed corporate tools, guidance and training on conflict sensitivity and context analysis. Operationalizing pathways to sustaining peace in the context of Agenda 2030 – A how-to guide is another crucial document in that series, developed through collaboration between the FAO Conflict and Peace Unit and Interpeace in the context of a wider partnership between the two Organizations. Following broad consultation across the Organization, this document provides operational guidance and inspiration to FAO project and technical staff on how our work can enhance FAO’s contributions to peace – and how to measure those contributions. It is part of an ongoing process, which complements FAO’s efforts through its Strategic Framework to support the transformation to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, for better production, better nutrition, better environment and better life, leaving no one behind.
The aim of this report is to define the strategy for the Science and Policy Interface under Component 1 of the Resilient Food Systems Programme (RFS) Hub. Under this component, FAO and UN-Environment Programme, in partnership with RFS country projects and a range of other actors and platforms and institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, aim to address institutional and policy barriers to inclusion of ecosystem services-aware approaches into policies and investments for improved and sustainable smallholder agriculture and natural resources. The focus of this component is the facilitation of dialogue, models, policies, and institutions that bridge the agricultural and environmental agendas and constituencies, at various scales.
The purpose of this Guide is to equip FAO and its partners with information on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) relevant to their work and provide practical guidance on how to design and deliver food security and nutrition programmes in ways that prevent and mitigate GBV and contribute to the protection of survivors and those at risk. In view of the Organization’s specific areas of competence in food security, nutrition, and agricultural livelihoods, this Guide will focus on GBV issues in this context. All staff should endeavour to understand the contents of this Guide and follow its recommendations to ensure FAO creates safe and sustainable livelihood opportunities that can truly build resilience. The Guide is a living document that will continue to evolve as FAO accumulates experiences and lessons learned in an ever-changing working environment.
The status of women in agrifood systems report uses extensive new data and analyses to provide a comprehensive picture of women’s participation, benefits, and challenges they face working in agrifood systems globally. The report shows how increasing women’s empowerment and gender equality in agrifood systems enhances women’s well-being and the well-being of their households, creating opportunities for economic growth, greater incomes, productivity and resilience. The report comes more than a decade after the publication of the State of food and agriculture (SOFA) 2010–11: Women in agriculture – Closing the gender gap for development. SOFA 2010–11 documented the tremendous costs of gender inequality not only for women but also for agriculture and the broader economy and society, making the business case for closing existing gender gaps in accessing agricultural assets, inputs and services. Moving beyond agriculture, The status of women in agrifood systems reflects not only on how gender equality and women’s empowerment are central to the transition towards sustainable and resilient agrifood systems but also on how the transformation of agrifood systems can contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the available evidence on gender equality and women’s empowerment in agrifood systems that has been produced over the last decade. The report also provides policymakers and development actors with an extensive review of what has worked, highlighting the promise of moving from closing specific gender gaps towards the adoption of gender-transformative approaches that explicitly address the formal and informal structural constraints to equality. It concludes with specific recommendations on the way forward. Last update 03/08/2023
FAO is analysing and providing updates on the emerging COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on agricultural markets—effects that are still largely unknown. Most current assessments generally foresee a contraction in both supply of and demand for agricultural products, and point to possible disruptions in trade and logistics. On the supply side, widely different views remain on the duration of the shocks, the price dynamics, differential impacts between domestic and international markets, differences across countries and commodities, the likely paths of recovery, and the policy actions to remedy the various shock waves. On the demand side, there is near ubiquitous agreement that agricultural demand and trade would slow-down, with contractions stemming from a deceleration in overall economic activity (GDP growth) and rising rates of unemployment. While food and agricultural systems are exposed to both demand and supply side shocks (symmetric), these shocks are not expected to take place in parallel (asynchronous) since, inter alia, consumers can draw on savings, food stocks and safety nets.
Equipping agricultural extension and advisory services with nutrition knowledge, competencies and skills is essential to promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture. This report presents the results of an assessment of capacity within agricultural extension and advisory services, undertaken in Côte d'Ivoire with the global capacity needs assessment (GCNA) methodology developed by FAO and the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS). The methodology is available online at https://doi.org/10.4060/cb2069en
Food security means that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life. Food safety is interlinked with and essential to achieving food security. In times of food insecurity, humanitarian relief in the form of food aid is often distributed by specialized organizations, such as the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Under conditions of food assistance there are food safety considerations that must be taken in account so as to carefully evaluate the impact on food availability while minimizing the risk of exposure to foodborne contaminants among the receiving population, who may already be vulnerable to malnutrition. This case study lays out food safety consideration that might be helpful in situations where the impact of limited food availability is mitigated through food aid, which is meant to ensure acceptable health using two scenarios– lead in maize and fumonisins in cereal grains. Risk management and recommendations are also provided on how to address these food safety issues.
In this report, FAO illustrates the progress in fulfilling the mandate given to us by the Member Countries during 2021. In 2021, Latin American and Caribbean countries proved that even during one of the most demanding periods in recent history, it is possible to drive better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life, leaving no one behind. The results included in this document are important, but partial, examples of our work.
With the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and other partners, including the World Food Programme (WFP), the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) and USAID, between 17 December 2020 and 3 January 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (MoANR) carried out its annual assessment Mission to determine crop production and food supply situation throughout the 18 states of the country. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictive measures introduced to contain it, the methodology was modified, with institutions of the Federal Government, normally conducting the survey, delegating to staff at State level the task of collecting all the requested data, under the supervision of federal staff from the Food Security Technical Secretariat (FSTS) and the General Directorate of Planning and Agricultural Economics (GDPAE).
Using the Brazilian National School Feeding Programme (PNAE) as reference, this study highlights the need for greater multisectoral collaboration, while addressing specific issues such as coverage, targeting, nutrition standards and guidelines, local procurement, food and nutrition education (FNE), policy frameworks and institutional arrangements. All of these are essential for the best implementation strategy of school food and nutrition (SFN) programmes in Africa.
Governments have turned to FAO for support in identifying and assessing options for reforming policies on food and agriculture through the “Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies” (MAFAP) programme. While the first phase of FAO’s efforts concentrated more on conducting policy analysis and measuring public expenditures, this second phase built on the first phase’s outcomes to support policy reforms across Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. MAFAP has been found to be an effective and well-positioned influencer of policy reforms in the agricultural sector. However, there are areas of improvement for this programme, including: i) increased resources to better address increasing policy support demand; ii) more strategic planning; iii) more formal institutionalization and more engagement with civil society and the private sector; iv) more coherence at country level in conducting preliminary analysis; and v) improvement to its knowledge management system in order not to lose its institutional memory.
On 23 September 2021, the Food Systems Summit convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, was held. Latin America and the Caribbean played an essential role in this event. The official proposals and recommendations presented at the Summit are part of the official reports of the national dialogues and the speeches of their official representatives. In this publication, we reproduce the transcripts of these 23 speeches. This publication is an invitation to those who want to learn about Latin America and the Caribbean proposals at the Summit.
The visual guide has been designed for use to lead in discussion with stakeholders and target groups on how to prevent and reduce exposure of children and young workers to occupational safety and health risks in agriculture. The aim of this tool is to raise awareness and knowledge on the hazards that children and young workers in agriculture are exposed to, the physical and mental risks associated with such exposure, and how to address these to protect children's wellbeing and improve working conditions, especially for younger workers of legal working age.
The publication aims at presenting best practices and lessons learned from two programmes implemented in Kenya and in the United Republic of Tanzania which capitalized on FAO's experience and knowledge in inclusive food systems development, targeting both the policy and institutional level and the direct support to value chain actors (i.e. SMEs). The focus of the programme was twofold, covering both the policy level (through improved inter-sectoral coordination and capacity building of institutions) and the pilot of inclusive investments strategies by small and medium agro-industries to source from small-scale producers. Four food subsectors were selected, based on their nutrition relevance in the national and local consumption patterns and on their economic potential for small-scale actors (red meat, white meat, soybean, rice, maize and edible oils).
The INFORMED programme, implemented by FAO from 2015 to 2019, was designed to contribute to “increasing the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises and contributing to the reduction of food insecurity and malnutrition”. The programme’s increased focused on Early Warning for Early Action (EWEA) was very relevant to fill existing gaps with a comparative advantage for FAO in slow onset and food chain crises contexts. Promoting the use of pre-agreed plans and pre-identified anticipatory actions, the project effectively improved risk analysis and decision making, including through the Global Report on Food Crises, and increased access to appropriate financing instruments, while the EWEA country toolkit initial positive spinoffs remain to be built on.Efforts to support resilience measurement and analyses by applying the resilience index measurement and analysis (RIMA) methodology are relevant given the significant investments in resilience programming and the continuing methodological gaps. However, although RIMA provides a basis for creating evidence on resilience investments, and FAO has been an important pioneer in resilience measurement, a wider system supporting resilience analysis is needed, based on a range of methodologies, responding to the information needs of decision-makers. Also, RIMA baseline lacks sufficient detail to allow articulating the feasibility of possible response options and have a practical impact on planning decisions; it has not demonstrated its added value over pre-existing food security, nutrition and risk indicators to help target interventions, and is not well adapted as an impact evaluation tool.Assessing INFORMED results against its intention to support knowledge production and sharing, to promote the replication of good practices and circular learning, the evaluation questioned the choice of creating a new knowledge management platform versus adopting a collaborative approach building on similar initiatives’ strengths. Poor strategic choices represented a fundamental constraint to reach intended objectives, such as, an insufficient understanding of users explaining the difficulty to trace the uptake and use of knowledge products. Nevertheless, the evaluation recognized the progressive investments in knowledge management and sizeable accomplishments of a relatively small team.The evaluation suggests strengthening capacities for the production and dissemination of forecast, scenario-based early warning as a basis for early action; developing a corporate strategy for partnering to strengthen early warning system capacities at various levels; promoting the use of a toolkit of approaches and investing in a knowledge management function dedicated to capturing and disseminating lessons on the effectiveness of EWEA and resilience interventions.
The project aim was to sustainably improve the livelihoods and food security of communities and the poor and vulnerable in six townships in the Central Dry Zone (CDZ) of Myanmar through improving livestock health, productivity, and marketing. The project is highly relevant as livestock are critical to people’s livelihoods in the area. It was evaluated as being efficiently delivered with very significant benefits being provided in developing livestock policies with good sustainability and identifying effective new technologies to promote livestock production in the CDZ. Of note, project efficiency was evaluated as being high with an adaptive approach taken as priorities changed and opportunities developed, and with strong government support providing considerable staff and other resources. At the time of the evaluation, the impact of the project remains limited as little extension work has been undertaken to improve livestock production practices and many of the policies being developed are yet to be finalized. However, the project has laid down a strong basis for the improvement in livestock policies and improved production practices and Government has taken strong ownership of these. The impact of the project will be enhanced over time as policies are consolidated and further extension of the new technologies undertaken.
Agricultural production more than tripled between 1960 and 2015, owing in part to productivity-enhancing technologies and a significant expansion in the use of land, water, and other natural resources for agricultural purposes. Today, more than ever, agriculture faces multiple and complex challenges. It has to provide sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet boosting demand by a growing and progressively more prosperous population, and ensure food security for all. Prepared to support the G20 Presidency of Japan and the G20 Agriculture Deputies, these three background notes provide an overview on the following interlinked issues: (i) the policy challenges for strengthening the participation of farmers into modern value chains and promoting value addition, inclusion, sustainability and rural economic growth; (ii) the need for a transformation in the skillset of agricultural workers and a renewed focus on human capital development in agriculture, and (iii) the contribution of agriculture to the realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This Guidance document is developed in the framework of SO3-OO2 and aims to assist FAO Members in incorporating decent rural employment (DRE) interventions across different agricultural sub-sectors. The Guidance document is mainly designed for policy makers and staff responsible for strategic planning and programme development in the ministries responsible for agriculture and planning. It also addresses other public and private institutions involved in strategic planning for agricultural and rural development such as employers, producers and workers' organizations.
This information note reports on the state of food security and nutrition at the beginning of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It identifies key measurement challenges for monitoring progress towards the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 2), which aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. It also identifies the most important linkages both across the elements comprised under SDG 2 and between SDG 2 and other SDGs and lays out the challenges in monitoring progress towards improved food security and nutrition and sustainable agricultural systems.
School-based food and nutrition education (SFNE) helps schoolchildren and the school community to achieve lasting improvements in their food practices and outlooks; build the capacity to change and to adapt to external change; and pass on their learning to others. SFNE has also an important role in complementing efforts that are being made globally to improve food environments, and in empowering children and adolescents to become active participants in shaping the food system to be better able to deliver healthy and sustainable diets. Despite increasing interest for SFNE, the evidence that supports it and its potential, much of traditional SFNE, particularly in LMICs, is largely underfunded, not delivering results, and disconnected from other key interventions that aim to support the food, nutrition, environment, and education nexus. SFNE is under-resourced, with capacity development opportunities lacking throughout the school system.This White Paper is the first document of its kind, and it is based on the evidence, professional expertise, and field experience, lessons learned, and documented challenges of SFNE work in a variety of contexts. It presents the case for raising the profile and transforming the vision and learning model of SFNE. This document is directed firstly to a technical audience working in governmental organizations that deal with schoolchildren and adolescents and is also of interest to researchers, technical advisors, decision-makers, donors and investors, civil society, and UN organizations.
The Meeting the Undernutrition Challenge (MUCH) programme, funded jointly by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Union, had the overall objective to improve the enabling environment to eradicate food insecurity and malnutrition in Bangladesh. The programme enhanced a national policy shift toward addressing nutrition by improving policy processes with more participation of civil society and subnational stakeholders, enriching policy and programming to address needs throughout the country. The programme supported significant enhancement of technical capacities to gather and analyze food security and nutrition evidence, innovative approaches for engaging students in nutrition learning activities, and improved the links between research and policy-making. Subnational capacity development support was initiated in the middle of the programme, identifying important opportunities for impactful multi-stakeholder collaboration on implementing national policy. The evaluation noted important effort on gender issues, but pointed out that emphasizing women’s empowerment and gender equity within all FSN programming is critical to success. To eradicate food insecurity and malnutrition throughout Bangladesh more work is especially needed in formalizing improved food-sector collaboration and multi-stakeholder governance mechanisms to continuously develop, learn, share and implement good practice at all levels.
Women and youth-led agri-enterprises (WYE) (which may also be operating as family businesses) in agricultural value chains have been identified as catalysts for rural transformation given their potential for creating employment and stimulating value addition both on and off-farm. Given that agriculture and food systems are likely to remain the key generators of employment in Ghana over the coming decades, and that 80% of all activities in the midstream of food value chain are undertaken by SMEs in Africa. It is very much necessary to generate the evidence to support the argument that family, women and youth-led agribusinesses have a key role to play in the rural transformation pathway underway in Ghana.
Worldwide, food safety incidents can have a significant impact on public health, economies, agrifood trade, food security, and public confidence in the food supply. The prevention, mitigation, and management of food safety incidents globally can be enhanced through more effective early warning systems for food safety. Early warning systems help countries to better anticipate food safety threats and respond quicker through appropriate risk management actions. This publication provides a resource for countries to enhance their early warning capabilities and capacities. It emphasizes the need to build and connect links between existing food safety infrastructure (e.g. surveillance and food control) and to improve collaborative relationships among all of the different food chain stakeholders in order to protect public health and the food supply.
At its 26th Session in October 2018, the FAO Committee on Agriculture (COAG) requested FAO to take the lead to develop voluntary codes of conduct for the reduction of food loss and food waste. In response to the COAG request, FAO developed the Voluntary Code of Conduct for Food Loss and Waste Reduction, which was endorsed by the 42nd Session of the FAO Conference in June 2021. The Voluntary Code of Conduct for Food Loss and Waste Reduction sets out a generic framework of actions and guiding principles that should be followed to reduce food loss and waste (FLW) and support the transformation of agrifood systems to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable. Governments can use the framework as a basis for the development of strategies, policies and legislations, which are critical elements of intervention packages aimed at effectively and sustainably reducing FLW. The framework can also serve for the formulation of programmes on FLW reduction and for the preparation of technical guidelines for use by practitioners.
This country gender assessment responds to the requirements of the FAO Policy on Gender Equality 2020–2030. By providing information and analysis on the gender dimensions of the agriculture and rural sector, it aims to support the formulation and implementation of gender-responsive policies, strategies, and projects at country level, in line with national development priorities and FAO’s mandate.
The Handbook aims to sensitize agricultural programme staff on the importance of incorporating child labour prevention as a crosscutting issue in their planning, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system and of systematically considering the potential positive and negative impacts of agricultural programmes on child labour. The Handbook furthermore encourages the user to identify good agricultural practices for preventing and reducing child labour in agriculture.
South-South Cooperation (SSC) is the mutual sharing and exchange of development solutions between developing countries, including knowledge, experiences and good practices, policies, technology, and resources. The project in Uganda (Phases I and II) under the FAO-China SSC is among the Programme’s longest and most successful collaborations. Here, you can read the personal stories of some of the project participants, beneficiaries, and stakeholders. Their stories highlight the personal and community-level effects that the project has created. Their stories will also demonstrate the successes and positive impact of the project in their personal and professional lives while bringing to light the persistent challenges that can be used to inform future action.
In order for Codex Alimentarius Members to share information on the results of Genetically Modified (GM) food safety assessments, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) maintains an online database entitled “FAO GM Foods Platform”. Upon requests from several Members, a global community meeting of the FAO GM Foods Platform was organized from 10 to 13 September 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand. Ninety-nine people from 73 different Platform community members participated in the meeting. This report describes the key points of discussions that took place during the three and a half days of the meeting; these include, but are not limited to, clear benefits of data sharing, and good practices in the process of sharing and utilizing the shared data. While the main purpose of the Platform is to simply share the relevant official data globally, the community of the Platform was recognized as a great value, providing an opportunity for all focal points of the Platform to be able to directly communicate and learn from each other on technical issues around GM food safety assessments, and more importantly, to develop mutual trust among the community members from different countries. The Platform itself has become a model for an effective community of practice, resulting in many collaborative and successful joint activities, including bilateral and multilateral capacity development actions. At the end of the meeting, participants had the opportunity to network through the World Café to identify concrete steps for follow-up actions at the national and regional level.
This final report presents the key findings of the pilot project for testing the practical application of the OECD-FAO Guidance. It includes progress made over the pilot timeline, and summarizes the key lessons learned, good practices and challenges highlighted through the activities implemented with pilot participants throughout the duration of the pilot project. It provides conclusions and recommendations for various categories of staekholders.
The evaluation of the project “Improving rural livelihoods, environment & green jobs opportunities in Mafraq Governorate in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” (GCP/JOR/017/EC) looked into accountability issues but also sought to document lessons, identify good practices and challenges that can inform the design and implementation of follow-up or similar projects in innovative waste disposal techniques and green jobs in order to achieve positive economic, environmental and social outcomes. The evaluation considered the multisectoral project to be innovative and relevant to FAO's mandate and work in the country, highlighting the complexities of the food–water–energy nexus. It achieved consensus at the highest levels on the use of biosolids for agricultural purposes through the use of evidence-based research, and at the same time resulted in a reduction in the amount of waste going to the landfill, provided livelihood opportunities for Syrian refugees working in the Material Recovery Facility within Zaatari refugee camp. This project demonstrated well the potential and the practical challenges of integrating the humanitarian-development-peace nexus within FAO’s work.
These guidelines for agreeing on causes of malnutrition for joint action are designed to assist professionals involved in development, emergency, and resilience building programmes who seek to promote integrated planning across sectors for sustainable improvements in nutrition. The guidelines present a workshop methodology that uses a Problem and/or Solution Tree approach for: sensitization and training on nutrition, food security and livelihoods; strategic planning for integrated nutrition programmes; designing information and surveillance systems for nutrition and food security; developing partnerships for improving nutrition, food security and livelihoods.
The farm structures in the countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are highly diverse, but in most of the countries are still largely dominated by smallholders and family farms. Supporting smallholders and family farms is one of four priorities for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Europe and Central Asia, confirmed by the FAO Regional Conference in 2018. FAO established in the region in 2014 the Regional Initiative on Empowering Smallholders and Family Farms for Improved Rural Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction (Regional Initiative 1) as a programmatic umbrella for the implementation of support to smallholders and family farms in the programme countries in the region. During 2018-2019, FAO REU conducted country studies on the needs and constraints of smallholders and family farms in eight countries of the region. Seven of these were funded from a regional project (TCP/RER/3601) and the Serbian study was financed from extra budgetary funds. The countries were selected from among those where smallholders and family farms dominate the farm structures and from the various sub-regions so that together they provide a regional overview. The countries covered in the report are Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Republic of Moldova, North Macedonia, Serbia and Tajikistan. The methodology was common among the eight country studies, although with some variations from country to country due to differences in national contexts. The eight studies were elaborated by national experts supported by international consultants and FAO technical guidance. The research methodology combines the use of desk research and statistics, interviews with key stakeholders, workshops with key stakeholders and decision makers, and the use of qualitative cases.
The roots and tubers industry in sub-Saharan Africa has been growing steadily in recent years. Nevertheless, a series of challenges, including lack of access to finance and climate change related events, has prevented the majority of actors in these value chains, who are mainly small farmers and small processors, from taking advantage of such growth. In order to properly assess such challenges, the project “Strengthening linkages between small actors and buyers in the roots and tubers sector in Africa” conducted a series of studies to identify relevant gaps, constraints and opportunities to develop tailored financial products and risk management strategies for small farmers. The present publication provides a summary of the most important lessons learned, with the related policy recommendations.
The capacity needs assessment tool is meant to be used by national and local groups as a foundation for the design of school-based food and nutrition education capacity development strategies. The tool builds on FAO’s experience and expertise in capacity development, and adopts a broad approach that not only assesses capacities at the individual level, but also expands to the level of organizations and the enabling environment.
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