Ethiopia is a home for diverse livestock including small ruminants and has the largest population of livestock in Africa. Livestock is kept for export earnings, food security, economic growth, poverty reduction and employment opportunities. Small ruminants are an important resource for livelihood and food security improvement serving as sources of food, income, risk mitigation, property security, monetary saving, investment, and providing other social and cultural benefits.
IFAD’s technical assistance programme INSURED (Insurance for rural resilience and economic development) has been building knowledge about how to strengthen women producers’ access to climate risk insurance. Working with partners, INSURED supported research, and fieldwork in Ethiopia including group discussions with smallholders about insurance options. A checklist was drawn up for insurance designers and implementers to help them reach out to women every step of the way.
This report describes the findings of the country study carried out for the design of IFAD project on Restoration of Landscapes and Livelihoods (ROLL P) in Lesotho. Following an IFAD designed project to develop an integrated approach for designing climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive investments, support was provided to undertake a thorough situation analysis for climate, nutrition and their interlinkages and to identify potential pathways and interventions to achieve both climate action and nutrition outcomes.
This report describes the findings of the country study carried out for the design of IFAD Smallholder Agriculture Cluster Project (SACP) in Zimbabwe. Following an IFAD designed project to develop an integrated approach for designing climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive investments, support was provided to undertake a thorough situation analysis for climate, nutrition and their interlinkages and to identify potential pathways and interventions to achieve both climate action and nutrition outcomes.
The evidence base on agri-food systems is growing exponentially. The CoSAI-commissioned study, Mining the Gaps, applied artificial intelligence to mine more than 1.2 million publications for data, creating a clearer picture of what research has been conducted on small-scale farming and post-production systems from 2000 to the present, and where evidence gaps exist.
A range of approaches and financial instruments have been used to stimulate and support innovation in agriculture and resolve interlocking constraints for uptake at scale. These include innovation platforms, results-based payments, value chain approaches, grants and prizes, incubators, participatory work with farmer networks, and many more.
The challenges faced by agricultural systems call for an advance in risk management (RM) assessments. This research identifies and discusses potential improvements to RM across 11 European Union (EU) farming systems (FS). The paper proposes a comprehensive, participatory approach that accounts for multi-stakeholder perspectives relying on 11 focus groups for brainstorming and gathering suggestions to improve RM.
This toolbox has been developed to collate different tools and methods that can be used for food system analysis.
It is specifically based on systems thinking for food system analysis, with the aim to formulate actionable recommendations that can bring about systemic change.It describes both the process of a food system analysis, as well as a set of tools that can be used at different stages.
The study was designed to answer the following three key questions:
(1) What types of investment instruments have been tested to support innovation in agri-food systems in the Global South, and how can these be categorized into a working typology?
(2) What is the evidence on how well different instruments have supported SAI's multiple objectives (e.g. social equality and environmental) at scale and what contextual and design factors affect their success or failure in achieving these objectives (e.g. type of value chain, who participates)?
This shift in thinking will require major shifts in policy, research, and investment. But where should these investments go? What foundations should be strengthened? Which gaps need filling? What’s working? What’s not?
In order to answer these questions in an informed way, we need to examine the evidence that exists and identify areas where more research is needed.
But this is easier said than done.