Multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs) have become a popular mechanism in global development and conservation circles, given the urgency to find transformative approaches to address climate change and unsustainable development. In this current context, it is important to take stock of MSFs, an example of a participatory mechanism that is emerging as a new ‘solution’.

Lao People’s Democratic Republic is a poorly developed, surface water-rich country that has traditionally given limited priority to its groundwater resources, which has resulted in a situation of inadequate scientific knowledge, technical capacity, and policies within the sector. This is slowly changing as the role of groundwater in socioeconomic development is better recognized. This chapter presents an overview of the country’s groundwater resources. It examines the state of knowledge, challenges, gaps, and barriers for effective groundwater resource development.

Governments in sub-Saharan Africa promote the expansion of irrigation to improve food security, primarily through the adoption and use of groundwater-based smallholder private irrigation. Using the case of Ethiopia, we examine farmers’ willingness to adopt smallholder private irrigation packages in response to subsidies on pump prices, loan availability and reduction in ambiguities related to borehole drilling. The results of the research highlight that subsidizing pump prices may not be the best use of public funds to expand irrigation.

This synthesis brief draws on the experiences of the Restoring Degraded Landscapes sub-program, part of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE). The brief captures learning from a decade (2011-2021) of research in development work with different stakeholders including farmers and governments across the world to reverse landscape degradation. It provides an overview of effective approaches, innovations and solutions that can be taken forward and scaled up to meet current and future challenges from land degradation – as well as the opportunities that may arise.

Value chain for development (VCD) has increasingly been promoted for poverty reduction; yet, there is inadequate evidence on its effectiveness. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this article offers reasons why evidence on VCD impacts on poverty reduction is uncertain. It also suggests a conceptual framework for the poor-centred value chain for sustainable development to guide a better analysis of VCD participation and poverty impacts. The framework is particularly useful for researchers involved in research for development related projects in the VCD space.

Led by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), WLE is a collaboration between CGIAR Research Centers, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the RUAF Foundation, and several national, regional and international partners. Through these partners, we provide evidence and solutions on natural resource management to influence key decision makers, including governments, international development organizations and financiers.

Recognizing the potential interactions and synergies between adaptation and mitigation in land-use policies in general and forest policies in particular, research on climate change policy has increasingly focused on integrating both objectives simultaneously (hereafter “interaction model”). However, while support exists for the integration of adaptation and mitigation, very few policies have successfully integrated both objectives in practice (hereafter “separation model”).

Climate change mitigation in forests:
Conflict, peacebuilding, and lessons for climate security
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This study estimates that Sustainable Seeds Systems for the Global South received approximately USD 15 billion in funding cumulatively between 2010-2019 across all sources of funders. This is roughly one-third the total funding for seeds innovation in the same time period. Though the trend should get confirmed with further data, the analysis made in this study reveals a slight decline in the trend for investments in sustainable seeds innovation over the last 2-3 years for which data was available.

Reorienting funding for research and innovation is an urgent step to transform agri-food systems

Water security is a powerful concept that is still in its early days in the field of nutrition. Given the prevalence and severity of water issues and the many interconnections between water and nutrition, we argue that water security deserves attention commensurate with its importance to human nutrition and health. To this end, we first give a brief introduction to water insecurity and discuss its conceptualization in terms of availability, access, use, and stability. We then lay out the empirical grounding for its assessment.

This factsheet gives answers on how climate exacerbates root causes of conflict in Nigeria, using an impact pathway analysis. Three main impact pathways are identified: 1) Resource availability and access pathway; 2) Livelihood and food insecurity pathway; 3) Fossil fuels, environmental impacts, and livelihood insecurity pathway.