The Lao People's Democratic Republic has experienced significant changes in agricultural development and commercialization over the past few decades. Approximately 80% of its population relies heavily on subsistence agriculture. These farmers have witnessed a remarkable decrease in the poverty rate, dropping from 46% to 18% between 1993 and 2019. This positive transformation can be attributed to enhanced infrastructure, enabling farmers to access markets in neighboring countries.

Agriculture remains crucial to Ghana’s economy, livelihoods and food security, contributing 20.3% of GDP in 2015. However, climate change creates mounting pressures on agricultural productivity and sustainability nationwide. Ghana has experienced rising temperatures, increased variability in rainfall, and more extreme weather events over the past decades. Climate shocks undermine crop and livestock yields, raise production risks and costs, lower incomes, and exacerbate hunger and poverty levels for smallholder farmers.

International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) organized a state consultation workshop on 14 December 2023 on ‘Policy Coherence in Food, Land, and Water (FLW) Systems: A case study of Odisha’ at Bhubaneswar as a part of the CGIAR Research Initiative on National Policies and Strategies Initiatives (NPS). The Food, Land and Water (FLW) project aims to identify key state-level policies in the food, land, and water systems that have a practical scope for improving coherence and hold most potential for creating an impact.

The implementation of activities in 2023 is focused on integrated emissions reduction and sustainability, as well as promoting investments in value chains oriented towards national and regional objectives of adaptation and mitigation of climate change, poverty, social inclusion and biodiversity.

This working paper examines the pivotal role of High Value Crop Products (HVCPs) in modern agricultural research and development, emphasizing their potential to significantly enhance rural prosperity and address global challenges such as poverty and food security. The paper argues for a shift in agricultural focus from traditional staple crops to HVCPs, highlighting their ability to generate higher income per unit of land and labor, thereby offering an effective solution to rural poverty.

The 2010s were a decade of strong economic development in Kenya. Gross domestic product (GDP)—an indicator of the economy’s size—expanded by an average of 5 percent per year (KNBS 2022). This exceeded population growth and helped raise household incomes, leading to a decline in poverty rates and, more importantly, in the number of poor people, for the first time in at least three decades (World Bank 2022). Agriculture played an important role in this. The sector grew alongside the rest of the economy, despite facing many challenges, including climate variability (Ochieng et al.

This book has adopted a food systems framework as a new way of conceptualizing and designing food policies and research. Looking beyond agriculture and value chains makes it possible not only to turn food systems into a driver of economic transformation but also to better include health, productivity, resilience, inclusivity, and sustainability as integral parts of system transformation. Such a fresh approach is urgently needed in light of limited development progress over the past years in Kenya and other countries.

Social protection programs (SPPs) are designed to help individuals and households cope with chronic poverty, destitution, and vulnerability. In the context of food systems, SPPs can help tackle the challenge of affordability of healthy diets. Nutrition-sensitive SPPs include conditions or additional interventions that enhance impacts on nutrition.

Agriculture is key to economic growth and poverty reduction in Kenya as it plays a pivotal role in employment creation, food security, exports, and sustainable development. In 2019, it directly contributed 22.7 percent of GDP, accounted for 20.9 percent of total exports, and generated 43.3 percent of employment (Chapter 2). The sector is thus not only an important driver of Kenya’s economy but also the means of livelihood for many Kenyan people.

For the 1.5 billion people living in fragile and conflict-affected settings,
livelihood challenges are compounded by climate change, unsustainable
resource consumption, poor governance, and weak social cohesion. In
Mozambique, a significant 45% of its inhabitants live below the poverty line,
and a staggering 80% rely on subsistence agriculture, a sector highly
susceptible to climate change. Socio-ecological risks have therefore become
increasingly prevalent along with environmental degradation and conflict.

The mid-hills of Nepal account for 68% of the country’s total area[1] and 56% of its arable land. Ranging in altitude from 610m to 4,876m, there are many small pockets of micro-irrigation that have the potential for high-value crop cultivation. However, almost a third of irrigable land here remains rainfed[2] and studies indicate an increase in fallow land due to a lack of year-round irrigation infrastructure and decrease in agricultural workforce.

Egypt’s Haya Karima (HK) Initiative aims at improving the quality of life in the country’s rural communities through interventions related to human development, infrastructure, and economic sectors. This presidential initiative, whose name translates to “Decent Life” in English, has four strategic goals, all targeting Egypt’s rural population: building human capital, improving quality of life, improving the standard of living for the most vulnerable, and providing decent and productive job opportunities.