This first ever FAO in Africa: Impacts in 2021 report presents a summary of the main priorities, developments and results achieved by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in the Africa region in 2021. FAO in Africa: Impacts in 2021 is organized according to the four betters identified in FAO’s Strategic Framework 2022–2031. The framework seeks to support the 2030 Agenda through the transformation to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind. This report shows real progress is being made in Africa. However, there is still much work to do. In 2022, FAO commits to continuing to work with our partners to support countries towards achieving better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life, leaving no one behind.
The Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. It brings together the commodity, policy and country expertise of both organisations as well as input from collaborating member countries to provide an annual assessment of the prospects for the coming decade of national, regional and global agricultural commodity markets. The publication consists of 11 Chapters; Chapter 1 covers agricultural and food markets; Chapter 2 provides regional outlooks and the remaining chapters are dedicated to individual commodities.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerability of agrifood systems to shocks and stresses and led to increased global food insecurity and malnutrition. Action is needed to make agrifood systems more resilient, efficient, sustainable and inclusive. The State of Food and Agriculture 2021 presents country-level indicators of the resilience of agrifood systems. The indicators measure the robustness of primary production and food availability, as well as physical and economic access to food. They can thus help assess the capacity of national agrifood systems to absorb shocks and stresses, a key aspect of resilience. The report analyses the vulnerabilities of food supply chains and how rural households cope with risks and shocks. It discusses options to minimize trade-offs that building resilience may have with efficiency and inclusivity. The aim is to offer guidance on policies to enhance food supply chain resilience, support livelihoods in the agrifood system and, in the face of disruption, ensure sustainable access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to all.
In recent years, several major drivers have put the world off track to ending world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. The challenges have grown with the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures. This report presents the first global assessment of food insecurity and malnutrition for 2020 and offers some indication of what hunger might look like by 2030 in a scenario further complicated by the enduring effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also includes new estimates of the cost and affordability of healthy diets, which provide an important link between the food security and nutrition indicators and the analysis of their trends. Altogether, the report highlights the need for a deeper reflection on how to better address the global food security and nutrition situation. To understand how hunger and malnutrition have reached these critical levels, this report draws on the analyses of the past four editions, which have produced a vast, evidence-based body of knowledge of the major drivers behind the recent changes in food security and nutrition. These drivers, which are increasing in frequency and intensity, include conflicts, climate variability and extremes, and economic slowdowns and downturns – all exacerbated by the underlying causes of poverty and very high and persistent levels of inequality. In addition, millions of people around the world suffer from food insecurity and different forms of malnutrition because they cannot afford the cost of healthy diets. From a synthesized understanding of this knowledge, updates and additional analyses are generated to create a holistic view of the combined effects of these drivers, both on each other and on food systems, and how they negatively affect food security and nutrition around the world. In turn, the evidence informs an in-depth look at how to move from silo solutions to integrated food systems solutions. In this regard, the report proposes transformative pathways that specifically address the challenges posed by the major drivers, also highlighting the types of policy and investment portfolios required to transform food systems for food security, improved nutrition, and affordable healthy diets for all. The report observes that, while the pandemic has caused major setbacks, there is much to be learned from the vulnerabilities and inequalities it has laid bare. If taken to heart, these new insights and wisdom can help get the world back on track towards the goal of ending hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition in all its forms.
On top of a decade of exacerbated disaster loss, exceptional global heat, retreating ice and rising sea levels, humanity and our food security face a range of new and unprecedented hazards, such as megafires, extreme weather events, desert locust swarms of magnitudes previously unseen, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Agriculture underpins the livelihoods of over 2.5 billion people – most of them in low-income developing countries – and remains a key driver of development. At no other point in history has agriculture been faced with such an array of familiar and unfamiliar risks, interacting in a hyperconnected world and a precipitously changing landscape. And agriculture continues to absorb a disproportionate share of the damage and loss wrought by disasters. Their growing frequency and intensity, along with the systemic nature of risk, are upending people’s lives, devastating livelihoods, and jeopardizing our entire food system. This report makes a powerful case for investing in resilience and disaster risk reduction – especially data gathering and analysis for evidence informed action – to ensure agriculture’s crucial role in achieving the future we want.
New evidence this year corroborates the rise in world hunger observed in this report last year, sending a warning that more action is needed if we aspire to end world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. Updated estimates show the number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to prevailing levels from almost a decade ago. Although progress continues to be made in reducing child stunting, over 22 percent of children under five years of age are still affected. Other forms of malnutrition are also growing: adult obesity continues to increase in countries irrespective of their income levels, and many countries are coping with multiple forms of malnutrition at the same time – overweight and obesity, as well as anaemia in women, and child stunting and wasting.
The Agricultural Outlook 2019-2028 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. It brings together the commodity, policy and country expertise of both organisations as well ...
This publication offers a synthesis of the major factors at play in the global food and agricultural landscape. Statistics are presented in four thematic chapters, covering the economic importance of agricultural activities, inputs, outputs and factors of production, their implications for food security and nutrition and their impacts on the environment. The Yearbook is meant to constitute a primary tool for policy makers, researchers and analysts, as well as the general public interested in the past, present and future path of food and agriculture.
The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2016-2025 provides an assessment of prospects for the coming decade of the agricultural commodity markets across 41 countries and 12 regions, including OECD countries and key agricultural producers, such as India, China, Brazil, the Russian Federation and Argentina.
Cash transfers have become a key social protection tool in developing countries and have expanded dramatically in the last two decades. However, the impacts of cash transfers programmes, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, have not been substantially documented. This book presents a detailed overview of the impact evaluations of these programmes, carried out by the Transfer Project and FAO’s From Protection to Production project. The 14 chapters include a review of eight country case studies: Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, as well as a description of the innovative research methodologies, political economy issues and good practices to design cash transfer programmes. The key objective of the book is to enhance the understanding of these development programmes, how they lead to a broad range of social and productive impacts and also of the role of programme evaluation in the process of developing policies and implementing programmes.
