This paper explores the economic implications of fall armyworm (FAW) and its management strategies by exploiting exogenous variation in FAW exposure amongst households in southern Ethiopia. We find that FAW exposure affects maize yield and sales negatively, but not consumption. Furthermore, we find evidence of crowding-in and intensification of insecticide use in response to FAW exposure. We also find suggestive evidence that existing extension service arrangements lack the capacity to deal with emerging threats such as FAW.

Land degradation is rampant in Africa, accounting for 46% of the total land area. Land degradation at the current pace is projected to render more than half of the cultivated land in Africa unusable by 2050. Land degradation and climate change mutually reinforce each other, creating serious implications for food security, biodiversity and livelihoods in Africa. Effective early warning systems are an essential and important alert mechanism for addressing land degradation.

Desertification has increased in African drylands in recent decades, led by land use change, climatic variability and poor land management practices. People living in drylands in Africa are highly vulnerable to desertification and climate change, because of their impacts on a wide range of livelihood based resources. Desertification and climate change affect gender disproportionately, with women and youth being the most affected. Without implementation of adequate measures, climate change will exacerbate the vulnerability to desertification among dryland populations in Africa.

The 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) introduced the idea of “climate-resilient development pathways” (CRDPs) as key responses to the threat of climate change (Roy et al. 2018). CRDPs are not merely scenarios to envision possible futures but are processes of deliberation and implementation that address societal values, local priorities and their inevitable trade-offs (Roy et al. 2018).

This information note summarizes the state of livestock farming in the Orinoco region and the conditions that combine there to develop GANSO (abbreviation for sustainable livestock farming in Spanish, Ganaderia Sostenible), an innovative technical and financial assistance program aimed at a transformation to low-carbon and sustainable livestock farming that embraces productive, economic, social and environmental factors.

Gender differences and gender inequalities in rights, status and responsibilities significantly shape daily rural life and life cycles in rural West Africa (Levasseur 2003), where women face significant constraints in participating in activities aimed at restoring forests and farmland. Yet, they also find innovative ways to overcome such constraints, such as collective action and the creation of groups of mutual support.

The overall objective of this project was to support the scaling up of gender sensitive Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) as a mechanism to increase resilience and improve livelihoods of vulnerable households in the face of climate-related impacts. Focused on two countries, Guatemala and Honduras, it aimed to generate science-based actionable information, tools and processed that support decision making by stakeholders at different scales, from farmers to subnational, national and regional levels. Its specific objectives were:

The Amazon basin is the world’s largest rainforest and the most biologically diverse place on Earth. Despite the critical importance of this region, Amazon forests continue inexorably to be degraded and deforested for various reasons, mainly a consequence of agricultural expansion. The development of novel policy strategies that provide balanced solutions, associating economic growth and environmental protection, is still challenging, largely because the perspective of those most affected- local stakeholders- is often ignored.