To reorient food systems to ensure they deliver healthy diets that protect against multiple forms of malnutrition and diet-related disease and safeguard the environment, ecosystems, and natural resources, there is a need for better governance and accountability. However, decision-makers are often in the dark on how to navigate their food systems to achieve these multiple outcomes. Even where there is sufficient data to describe various elements, drivers, and outcomes of food systems, there is a lack of tools to assess how food systems are performing.

Land degradation and discontinuation of ecosystem services (ES) are a common phe nomenon that causes socio-economic and environmental problems in Ethiopia. However, a dearth of information is known about how ES are changing from the past to the future with regard to land use land cover (LULC) changes. This study aimed at estimating the values of ES based on the past and future LULC changes in central Ethiopia.

Massive SLM/CSA practices have been implemented for the last four decades in various agro-ecologies
of Ethiopia. Nevertheless, these practices were not well catalogued in illustrative (pictorial)
representation. Cataloguing Sustainable Land management (SLM) and Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA)
practices, technologies and approaches are important in helping us to understand what we have, where
they are located and what stories they tell. The first attempt is thus being made to catalogue and

Climate change and the consequent increase in the incidence of drought and flood will remain a major threat to smallholders. Hence, it is crucial to adopt an appropriate adaptation strategy to overcome this threat and increase farmers’ income. Because seed is a primary input, the adoption of stress-tolerant rice varieties is a potential mitigation strategy to combat climate risks.

Smallholder farmers around the world obtain their seed from various sources, which can vary over time. In some countries, smallholder farmers are gaining ground as local seed producers and sellers. This study focuses on the seed production and marketing operations, achievements, and challenges of a particular type of such producers—community seed banks—which are new players in the seed market. Pioneer case studies are presented from countries where grain legumes and dryland cereals are important crops: India, Nepal, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

Finance for climate action can be an important means of bolstering the resilience of communities exposed to climate hazards, addressing developmental challenges, and redistributing wealth toward the Global South. However, investments in contexts where climate and conflict risks overlap must recognize linkages between the two and be careful not to cause or worsen violence. More aspirationally, they should leverage food, land, and water systems to build peace by fostering positive social conditions.

"Key Messages

The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources is one of the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); while under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and agriculture (ITPGRFA) Article 9.2b addresses the right to equitably participate in sharing benefits arising from the utilization of PGRFA. Benefits may include monetary and non-monetary benefits, including but not limited to those listed in the Annex of
the Nagoya Protocol.

Do electoral considerations play a role in the targeting of humanitarian transfers? We analyze the targeting of direct cash and food transfers distributed in Malawi in response to an exceptionally poor harvest following a late and erratic rainy season of 2015-16. Combining household survey data on transfers with a remotely sensed measure of drought and with the results of the 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections, we show that transfers were disproportionately targeted at marginal constituencies.