Ein Jahr bevor die Frist zur Erreichung der Millenniums-Entwicklungsziele im Jahr 2015 abläuft, bietet der Welthunger-Index (WHI) einen facettenreichen Überblick über die Verbreitung des Hungers und trägt neue Erkenntnisse darüber in die weltweite Debatte, wie Hunger und Mangelernährung verringert werden können. Betrachtet man die Entwicklungsländer als Gruppe, so hat sich die Hungersituation dort seit 1990 verbessert. Dem WHI 2014 zufolge ist seitdem ein Rückgang um 39 Prozent zu verzeichnen.

This paper investigates the effect of climate variables (precipitation and temperature) on food security indicators from 1961-2011 for 10 Eastern and Southern African countries by estimating fixed effects models. Food security is approximated by three indicators: food production index, mortality rate of people under five years of age, and life expectancy at birth. The results show that GDP per capita, inflation, population growth, and land under cereal production are significant in explaining the indicators of food security.

The recent popularity of the term resilience in the development discourse concerning arid and semiarid lands in Africa can be traced to two major international issues. The first is climate change, concerned with how to build resilient communities in the face of increasingly extreme weather events. The other is recurrent humanitarian crises, especially traced to the most recent drought‐ and conflict‐induced 2011 disaster in the Horn of Africa.

The AgriTech Toolbox enables researchers and policymakers to examine how alternative agricultural practices and technologies can impact farm yields, food prices, natural resource use, hunger, malnutrition, land use and global trade in 2050, when climate change impacts may be severe. As a result, it can inform the right mix of policies and investments needed to tackle the challenges agriculture faces in the coming decades. The AgriTech toolbox models the impacts of 10 technologies on farm yields, food prices, natural resource use, hunger, malnutrition, land use and global trade.

Climate change has been a significant issue since the end of the 20th century, and impacts a variety of economic sectors, primarily agriculture. The negative impacts of climate change on agricultural production are important because agriculture is closely linked to food security. Although they contribute the least to global pollution, it is estimated that African countries will be the most affected by climate variability.

There is widespread agreement that our ability to deliver sustainable food security for all will be challenged in three dimensions—population growth, constrained natural resources, and climate change. Investments in agricultural productivity are essential to dealing with these challenges. This suggests that cooperation across these two sets of institutions (FAO and the CGIAR) to take advantage of their expertise could result in better understanding for all.

This policy note summarizes research examining the medium-term impact of land registration in Ethiopia on household investment behavior, specifically in terms of the adoption of soil conservation techniques and tree planting. The research investigated whether men’s and women’s knowledge of their land rights—defined as tenure security, land transfer rights, and rights related to gender equity and inheritance—had an impact on their investment behavior.

Book chapter

An increasing body of research is focusing on the question of how poor agricultural households will both perceive and be affected by climate change. In view of its predicted effects, the need to identify effective adaptation strategies is urgent.

This study was undertaken to assess if various drought-proofing and drought-relief programs are effective in mitigating the impact of droughts on crop production and household consumption in rural Bihar, India. This study is relevant as Bihar has experienced four drought years since 2009. The drought in 2009 led to an increase in the number of poor people in the state from 2004-2005 to 2009-2010, in spite of rapid growth of gross domestic product in this period.

During the Donor Roundtable Meeting in Washington on the margins of the annual land conference at the World Bank on 12 April 2013 participants agreed to establish a new

"For millions of people living in the world’s poorest countries, access to land is a matter not of wealth, but of survival, identity and belonging. Most of the 1.4 billion people earning less than US$1.25 a day live in rural areas and depend largely on agriculture for their livelihoods, while an estimated 2.5 billion people are involved in full- or part-time smallholder agriculture.