The FAO-EU FLEGT Programme is carrying out an experience capitalization exercise to collect, analyse and share experiences, good practices and lessons learned during the implementation of the Phase III of the Programme. As a part of this effort, the Programme agreed to support the project entitled “Increasing Stakeholder Participation in Forest Law Reform Process: Case Studies from FAO-EU FLEGT Programme”. This project, carried out and co-financed by ClientEarth, includes a review of nine projects that focused on increasing stakeholder participation in legal reform processes in the following countries: the Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines. The publication includes the aggregate findings of the six focus countries, general analysis and recommendations.

this policy brief specifically focuses on tackling rural inequalities in public service coverage. Drawing evidence from across sectoral domains, the policy brief explores the manifestations of, causes of, and means to redress inequitable public service coverage within rural areas as well as between rural and urban areas. The primary target audiences for this policy brief are policy-makers, planners and development partners.

This document is prepared to illustrate the process of implementation of GSA from December 2017 to November 2020 in Jharkhand undertaken by PHIA and partner organisations with funding support from Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiative. This document is prepared as a best practice for knowledge sharing and as a tool for practitioners and policy makers to replicate and scale the initiative in a similar context. It is a step-by-step guide for promoting the agenda of local self-governance and boosting local democracy by following a systemic process and set of interventions.

Increasing investment and spending in agricultural innovation is not enough to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets of ending poverty and hunger because the effectiveness of investments in low- and middle-income (LMI) countries is affected by the low quality of infrastructure and services provided, and by different norms and practices that create a considerable gap between financing known technical solutions and achieving the outcomes called for in the SDGs. As an important part of a nation’s common innovation infrastructure, financial and extension services are major “enablers” of investments, favorably contributing to national innovative capacity. However, the contribution of these services to innovation in LMI countries has been limited. Financial services in LMI countries face low rates of return; high risks and lack of acceptable collateral; and limited outreach in rural areas. Similarly, the performance of extension services has been affected by ineffective and costly strategies that have promoted rigid recommendations with poor understanding of how farmers learn and lacked context-specific focus on solving problems.

Investing in farmers – or agriculture human capital – is crucial to addressing challenges in our agri-food systems. A global study carried out by the FAO Investment Centre and the International Food Policy Research Institute, with support from the CGIAR Research Programme on Policies, Institutions and Markets and the FAO Research and Extension Unit, looks at agriculture human capital investments, from recent trends to promising initiatives in Cameroon, Chile, Côte d’Ivoire, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru, Rwanda and the United States of America. It also includes 11 shorter case studies, ranging from pastoralist training centres to the inclusion of indigenous communities. The global study aims to provide governments, international financing institutions, the private sector and other partners with the evidence and analysis needed to make more and better investments in agriculture human capital. This publication is part of the Directions in Investment series under the FAO Investment Centre’s Knowledge for Investment (K4I) programme.

In many developing countries, smallholder farmers cultivating vegetatively propagated crops (VPCs) have limited access to quality planting material. This constraint can limit both the yield of and returns on VPC cultivation. Yet policy and regulatory initiatives designed to strengthen access to quality VPC planting materials have been relatively unsuccessful to date. Part of the problem is the unique biological and economic characteristics of vegetative propagation and its distinctness from cereal crops, which dominate narratives on seed system reforms. Drawing on qualitative analysis of policy and practice, this study examines reform options related to quality assurance regulations in four crop-country combinations: cassava in Nigeria and Vietnam, and potato in Kenya and Vietnam. The study highlights theory and evidence on existing models of regulation; alternative models that may better incentivize cost-effective multiplication and distribution; and recommendations for policy, regulation, and investment in VPC seed markets. Findings indicate that regulations designed around strict and centralized quality control systems tend to limit market size, while more localized production systems are limited by both capacity and reach. These findings suggest the need for alternatives that balance a permissive regulatory regime with decentralized production systems, grassroots capacity development, market surveillance, and systems that integrate internal (producer-level) quality assurance with external (regulatory) quality assurance.

Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) provides the interface for the meeting of farmers and scientists. This is a meeting of different social worlds, contesting agendas, cultures of cooperation and networks of actors. Like in other disciplines, scientists in AR4D have developed their own culture of science. However, the role of their culture of science in the negotiations and encounters with farmers’ social worlds is rarely discussed. Analysing AR4D with a theoretical framework based on Science and Technology Studies (STS) helps us to highlight important issues of power and access in AR4D. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how the introduction of certain technologies has interacted with the lives of people in an AR4D project in Ethiopia, and to highlight the potential and limitations of applying STS to AR4D. We interviewed farmers, scientists, extensionists, policy makers and donors associated with an AR4D project in the Ethiopian Highlands using qualitative social research approaches. Akrich’s theory on scripts provided the theoretical framework for analysis. Our findings provide examples for the re-inscription of technology and access in an AR4D project, leading to trade-offs and shifting of power between different actors. We conclude that understanding AR4D as part of a network of actors with its own culture of science provides an essential learning ground. We recommend STS to be applied more widely in AR4D to explore the nature of these networks to highlight what makes technology work for users in the long term.

The crucial questions are what AFS changes the COVID-19 pandemic will induce and how to shift the odds in favor of beneficial transformation? The adaptations that AVC businesses, governments, and NGOs make now to their policies and practices in response to the pandemic—in institutions and policies, as much as in technologies—will have lasting effects. We have less confidence that key AFS organizations and their leaders will make those adaptations than we have that such changes are increasingly, undeniably necessary. If leaders can learn these seven key AFS lessons of this pandemic, however, it will maximize the odds of innovation that ushers in healthier, more equitable, resilient and sustainable AFS.