Reducing poverty and hunger in Asia:

Investment Priorities for Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Asia Shenggen Fan, Joanna Brzeska, and Ghada ShieldsAgricultural development, Rural development, Hunger, Poverty reduction, economic growth, Agricultural policy, Technology transfer, infrastructure, Decentralization, rural areas, Millennium Development Goals, Sustainable development, Climate change,

Impact of climate change and bioenergy on nutrition

Food security has deteriorated since 1995 and reductions in child malnutrition are proceeding too slowly to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for halving hunger by 2015. Three major challenges threaten to drastically complicate efforts to overcome food insecurity and malnutrition: climate change, the growing use of food crops as a source of fuel and soaring food prices. Food security has four dimensions: food availability, access to food, stability of supply and access and safe and healthy food utilization. It is a key factor in good nutrition, along with health, sanitation and care practices. Globally, one billion people are currently without access to safe water and over 2 billion lack adequate sanitation facilities. Present global food supplies are more than adequate to provide everyone with all the needed calories, if the food were equally distributed. But over 820 million people in developing countries have calorie-deficient diets; over 60 percent live in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.Climate change, Bioenergy, Nutrition, food security, Food prices, Sustainable development,

A Guide to SDG Interactions: from Science to Implementation

The report examines the interactions between the various goals and targets, determining to what extent they reinforce or conflict with each other. It provides a blueprint to help countries implement and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Countries around the world are faced with a significant challenge: How can they reach the 17 SDGs – and 169 targets that sit underneath these goals – by 2030? The SDGs, which were adopted by the international community in 2015, cover a diverse range of issues including gender equity, sustainable cities, access to clean water, and good governance. It is a big, unwieldly, ambitious agenda that – if it is successfully implemented – could set the world on a course toward inclusive, sustainable development. The report proposes a seven-point scale to quantify these synergies and conflicts. The scale ranges from +3, which applies when one goal or target is very reinforcing of others, to -3, which applies when goals and targets conflict with each other. A score of 0 indicates neutral interaction. The report includes detailed analysis of four SDGs and their interactions with other goals: SDG2: Zero Hunger SDG3: Good Health and Well-being SDG7: Affordable and Clean Energy SDG14: Life below Wate

Working Paper 105 - Smallholder Agriculture in East Africa: Trends, Constraints and Opportunities

Smallholder agriculture continues to play akey role in African agriculture. This paperinvestigates trends, challenges andopportunities of this sub-sector in EastAfrica through case studies of Kenya,Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. In theseagriculture-based economies, smallholderfarming accounts for about 75 percent ofagricultural production and over 75 percentof employment. However, contributions ofsmallholder farming, and agriculture ingeneral, to the region’s recent rapid growthduring 2005 - 08 have remained limited.Instead, growth was driven by services, inparticular trade. This paper finds that at thenational level, weak institutions, restrictedaccess to markets and credit. These factors,including inadequate infrastructure, haveconstrained productivity growth ofsmallholder farming. Measures needed toimprove productivity of smallholder farmersinclude ease of access to land, training toenhance skills and encourage technologyadoption and innovation, and removal ofobstacles to trade. At the regional and globallevels, international trade barriers need to beaddressed.

Forests and Food

"As population estimates for 2050 reach over 9 billion, issues of food security and nutrition have been dominating academic and policy debates. A total of 805 million people are undernourished worldwide and malnutrition affects nearly every country on the planet. Despite impressive productivity increases, there is growing evidence that conventional agricultural strategies fall short of eliminating global hunger, as well as having long-term ecological consequences. Forests can play an important role in complementing agricultural production to address the Sustainable Development Goals on zero hunger. Forests and trees can be managed to provide better and more nutritionally-balanced diets, greater control over food inputs – particularly during lean seasons and periods of vulnerability (especially for marginalised groups) – and deliver ecosystem services for crop production. However forests are undergoing a rapid process of degradation, a complex process that governments are struggling to reverse. This volume provides important evidence and insights about the potential of forests to reducing global hunger and malnutrition, exploring the different roles of landscapes, and the governance approaches that are required for the equitable delivery of these benefits. Forests and Food is essential reading for researchers, students, NGOs and government departments responsible for agriculture, forestry, food security and poverty alleviation around the globe.

The power of us : counteracting decreasing sustainability

This PhD thesis comprises nine published papers covering three case study areas namely flexitarianism, the new human agenda and sustainability humanistic education. Whilst the case studies are concerned with three deliberately diverse areas, specifically food choices, development and tertiary education, they are united by the common conceptual themes of individual empowerment and action as a way of countering increasing unsustainability. The thesis takes a strong stance against the vast geopolitical megasystem of vested interests flourishing within the dominant geopolitical economic discourse and emphasises the role of personal power.To date, most attempts at countering mounting local and global unsustainability have failed, because those tasked and trusted to develop and implement solutions have a conflicting, short-term vested interest in maintaining the sources of the global human and environmental crisis. These globalised economic and political profit and power forces are subverting essential transformative change.The central premise on which the thesis is built is that there is an urgent need for a solution that offers an accessible and immediate opportunity for regaining, repairing and renewing human and biophysical wellbeing. Its main argument is that the possibility of countering increasing unsustainability perpetuated by global power alliances lies in the collective actions and outcomes of uncoordinated individual choices and endeavours mobilised through awareness, empowerment and education. Through such personal liberation from the duplicity of the megasystem and the ability to take back their power, humanity, comprising a collective of individuals and personal actions the world over, holds the key to a more sustainable future.In this previously academically unexplored area flexitarianism, the new human agenda and sustainability humanistic education are examples of how the sum of individual, uncoordinated actions, holds restorative and transformative opportunities for the achievement of a more sustainable world

Policies for sustainable land management in the East African highlands

This document presents the proceedings of the international conference held at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, April 24-26, 2002. The theme of the conference was Policies for Sustainable Land Management in the East African Highlands, which was convened to bring together researchers, policy makers, development practitioners, donors and others to review, discuss and synthesize the findings and policy implications of policy research related to sustainable land management in the East African highlands. The conference also aimed at increasing awareness of policy makers and other stakeholders of the impacts of policies, programs and other factors on land management, agricultural productivity, poverty and food security; to discuss promising strategies to promote more sustainable land management, increased agricultural productivity, and reduced poverty and food insecurity; and to consider priorities for policy action and future research