Livelihoods, food security, and development processes in Sub-Saharan Africa are highly dependent on land management practices to generate natural ecosystem goods and services. Out of a total population of about 717 million people, almost 60 percent depend for their livelihood on agriculture, hunting, fishing, or forestry. However, unsustainable land management already is leading to large-scale land degradation trends, which pose a threat to food security and poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Climate change threatens to exacerbate and add to the existing vulnerabilities.
This report summarizes the findings of the study on Competitive Commercial Agriculture for Africa (CCAA). The objective of the CCAA study was to explore the feasibility of restoring international competitiveness and growth in African agriculture through the identification of products and production systems that can underpin rapid development of a competitive commercial agriculture.
The rural space is home to 53 percent of Nigeria's population and more than 70 percent of its poor. While it is well understood in Nigeria that financial exclusion of the rural population stunts development, still fewer than 2 percent of rural households have access to any sort of institutional finance.
This report summarizes the findings of the Nigeria Agriculture Public Expenditure Review (NAGPER). The NAGPER was undertaken to achieve four main objectives: (i) establish a robust data base on public expenditure in the agricultural sector; (ii) diagnose the level and composition of agricultural spending in the recent past; (iii) understand the budget processes that determine resource allocation in the sector; and (iv) draw preliminary policy recommendations for agriculture. These objectives are admittedly modest.
CDAIS is a global partnership that aims to strengthen the capacity of countries and key stakeholders to innovate in the context of complex agricultural systems, to improve rural livelihoods. The goal of the Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation Systems (CDAIS) project is to promote innovation that meets the needs of small farmers, small and medium-sized agribusiness, and consumers.
Agricultural water management is a vital practice in ensuring reduction, and environmental protection. After decades of successfully expanding irrigation and improving productivity, farmers and managers face an emerging crisis in the form of poorly performing irrigation schemes, slow modernization, declining investment, constrained water availability, and environmental degradation. More and better investments in agricultural water are needed.
This study builds a profile of the status of poverty and vulnerability in Malawi. Malawi is a small land-locked country, with one of the highest population densities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and one of the lowest per capita income levels in the world. Almost 90 percent of the population lives in rural areas, and is mostly engaged in smallholder, rain-fed agriculture. Most people are therefore highly vulnerable to annual rainfall volatility. The majority of households cultivate very small landholdings, largely for subsistence.
In the past 50 years, Indian agriculture has undergone a major transformation, from dependence on food aid to becoming a consistent net food exporter. The gradual reforms in the agricultural sector (following the broader macro-reforms of the early 1990s) spurred some unprecedented innovations and changes in the food sector driven by private investment. These impressive achievements must now be viewed in light of the policy and investment imperatives that lie ahead.
The issue of regional differences in development has moved to the center of the development debate in Sri Lanka, partly after the release of regional poverty data. For the past many years, there have been significant and increasing differences between the Western province and the rest of the country in terms of per capita income levels, growth rates of per capita income, poverty rates, and the structure of provincial economies. The structure of the report is as follows: chapter two looks at the poverty/growth/agriculture nexus in the poorest regions of Sri Lanka.
Urban agriculture contributes to local economic development, poverty alleviation, the social inclusion of the urban poor and women, as well as to the greening of the city and the productive reuse of urban wastes. Urban agriculture encompasses a wide variety of production systems in both urban as well as peri-urban areas. This study examines the contribution of urban agriculture to livelihoods, food security, health, and the urban environment through an assessment of existing urban agriculture activities among poor households in four selected cities.