Large-scale challenges such as climate change, malnutrition, reducing biodiversity, social inequities, and poverty threaten the well-being of millions of smallholders in the Global South.

Key Messages

Cash transfers are a widely used form of social protection, providing effective and efficient ways to reduce poverty and support well-being.

Tremendous optimism prevails around bottomup accountability — a situation in which citizens effectively hold their government to account.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals were established to build a better and more sustainable future for all.

Agriculture holds tremendous potential to improve nutrition. Traditionally, agriculture investments focused on producing enough food to allow people to meet their caloric needs and on generating employment and income.

Globally, an estimated two billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies that contribute to weakened immune systems, disease, disability, and even death.1 One of the main causes of micronutrient deficiencies – also known as hidden hunger –

Human health is a fundamental feature of sustainable agricultural intensification. Agricultural intensification that increases the burden of human disease, however environmentally benign, is not sustainable.

Food systems, which are essential sources of food, but also of income and employment, especially for resource-poor populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), are undergoing dramatic transformations.

Food systems and diets are transforming rapidly in many parts of the world, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).

Aflatoxin contamination of several crops is common in tropical and subtropical regions. Maize and groundnut, staples for billions of people, are among the most susceptible to contamination, primarily caused by the fungus Aspergillus flavus.

According to the United Nations, the world’s population will grow by 2 billion people over the coming decades to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 (UNDESA-DP 2019a).

As social protection programs and systems adapt to mitigate against the COVID-19 crisis, gender considerations are likely to be overlooked in an urgent effort to save lives and provide critical economic support.

In late 2017, some 671,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar to Cox’s Bazar District in Bangladesh, where they joined 213,000 Rohingya who were already living there after having themselves fled earlier waves of violence.

Given the central role that agriculture plays in the rural economy of Africa, several countries have implemented supply– and demand-driven policies and programs to promote sustainable fertilizer use, with mixed results.

This brief examines estimates produced by several recent model simulations and frameworks that focus on the cost of ending hunger as well as progress toward other development goals—estimates that range from US$7 billion to US$265 billion per year.

This brief explores recent developments in Ghana that lend insight into the drivers of mechanization and the appropriate role of government policy in supporting this transition.

Many developing countries seem likely to see a substantial downturn in economic growth over the 2015–2030 implementation period of the SDGs, compared with the recent years of strong growth.

Las alzas de precios de los alimentos de 2008 y 2011 y las dislocaciones económicas, políticas y sociales que generaron, provocaron un reenfoque de la atención de los responsables de políticas y desarrollo en cuestiones de agricultura y seguridad

The costs of doing nothing about land degradation are several times higher than the costs of taking action to reverse it.