The Makueni Resource Hub was co-developed with stakeholders from the Makueni county government and officially launched at the Kenya Devolution Conference in November 2021. It has been embedded into county decision-making processes across multiple departments (agriculture, environment, planning, education and health).

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 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.

A collaborative effort by WLE/Alliance, GIZ-Ethiopia and partners to institutionalize data sharing has led the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture to adopt the concept. Partners undertook many activities: creation of a digital web portal, data collation, standardization guidelines and big data analysis. They are now developing a site-specific fertilizer recommendation tool. This has led to better-targeted recommendations and a paradigm shift in the research and development discourse as well as further funding and scaling of the framework to other countries.

This paper highlights how farmers in a northern Lao village transformed their customary land rights – in the face of incoherent overlapping state territorialization attempts – into a territorial strategy to secure their land tenure. By planting rubber, some villagers have engaged in a crop boom to lay claim to land which has recently been zoned for upland rice cultivation (and conservation) as part of a state-led land use planning initiative.

The CCAFS Scenarios Project worked closely together with FAO (the SAMIS project and the Flexible Multi-Partner project) to support the government of Lao PDR (Ministry of Agriculture) in the use of scenario-based land use mapping for policy guidance, in a systemic manner focused on internal capacity for applying this scenario-based approach to multiple policies. The Lao PDR Agricultural Development Strategy 2021 to 2030 is being supported by this process.

Agriculture plays a key dual role in Kenya. It provides livelihoods for 75% of the country’s population and supports 80% of its rural population. Crucially, it helps the country to meet its food security goals, which is increasingly challenging with Kenya’s population doubling over the last 25 years. Agricultural innovation in general, and SAI innovation in particular are important for Kenya given this central role of agriculture in Kenya along with the key role Kenya plays in East Africa.

This report investigates the functioning and outcomes of the multi-stakeholder platforms established in Tanzania. The study focused on two platforms in Kilolo and Lushoto districts and analyzed their activities to support scaling agricultural innovations. The findings show that the platforms are successful in network building and knowledge dissemination. However, there is a low participation of women and young people.

The International Conference on Eco-Health Nexus (ICEN 2023) aimed to promote interdisciplinary dialogues and solutions surrounding cascade ecology and human well-being. Cascade ecology refers to the study of ecological interactions in connected networks of tanks, streams and wetlands that exchange water, nutrients, and organisms.

Increasing demands for energy to boost the Mekong economies have attracted the keen interest of riparian countries for hydropower development. This is evidenced by extensive investment in hydropower projects across the region over the last few decades.

This article investigates water security in Nepal from the perspective of the water-energy-agriculture (food) nexus, focusing on pathways to water security that originate in actions and policies related to other sectors. It identifies promoting development of Nepal’s hydropower potential to provide energy for pumping as way to improve water security in agriculture.

The polders in coastal zones of Bangladesh are vulnerable to climate risks resulting in low agricultural productivity and low incomes for the communities dependent on agriculture-based livelihoods in these regions. Bangladesh adopted a participatory approach to water governance in the 1980s to improve the equitable and sustainable use of water resources. With men migrating away for better income opportunities, women are more involved in agricultural production and dependent on water resources.

On 16 October, scientists, politicians and world leaders gathered from around the world to celebrate World Food Day. Organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the annual event urged global action to ‘start managing water wisely’ in the race for zero hunger. Stressing the connections between water and food production, this year’s World Food Day served as an important reminder that food and nutrition security can only be achieved with sufficient water of adequate quality, quantity, and reliability.