This paper draws implications for understanding the link between empowerment and resilience among rural and smallholder agricultural communities in developing contexts. While existing evidence shows that women’s empowerment promotes their individual and household well-being, women smallholder farmers continue to exhibit limited capacity to cope with climate change– induced agricultural shocks. This is exacerbated by the existing social systems and structures which hinder women’s resilience and empowerment.

Women are more food insecure than men globally and in every region. This paper investigates the global gender gap in food insecurity and its evolution following the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the food insecurity experience scale (FIES) data collected from over 700,000 individuals across 121 countries, our empirical analysis showed that individuals aged 25– 34, regardless of gender, and women in rural areas had been disproportionally affected by the pandemic.

The Integrated Watershed Development Programme (IWDP) is key for rejuvenation and improvement of waterscarce landscapes in India. Despite policy guidelines, there has been limited success in ensuring community participation and inclusion in IWDPs, especially for women and people from vulnerable social groups. This study attempted to explore the politics of inclusion and exclusion because local hierarchies of caste and gender inhibit decision-making, access to services, participation and benefits from IWDPs.

Aquatic food systems make significant contributions to sustainable development through generating employment; providing community and household food and nutrition security; and strengthening family well-being, socioeconomic growth, poverty alleviation, climate resilience and environmental sustainability. SDG 5 makes an explicit commitment to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” in their own right. Yet gender inequalities and barriers remain prevalent in rural areas of lowincome countries, including where there is a high reliance on aquatic food systems.

Sustainable mechanization can help reduce women smallholder farmers’ time and labor burden while increasing farm productivity and building resilience. However, the reality is that most agricultural innovations and technologies do not cater to women’s needs or preferences and are primarily designed for middle-income male farmers. While the adoption of mechanization in Bangladesh is rapidly increasing, women smallholder farmers face sociocultural constraints that can make operating machines difficult.

Climate change poses a profound threat to the wellbeing and sustainability of farming and farm-based livelihoods in fragile socioecological systems. Climatic challenges to farming have often been addressed by diverse forms of sustainable intensification that aim to maximize farm outputs and resource-use efficiency through climate-smart innovations. However, climate change poses specific challenges to women farmers, who play important roles in agri-food systems, often in the absence of their male counterparts who recursively migrate from the climatically challenged regions.

This report provides a comprehensive statistical overview of agricultural household data collected by IFPRI from a smallholder commercialization survey in late 2022. Sampled to be representative to the provincial level, ten households were surveyed in 202 villages for a total of 2,020 households interviewed. The survey covers a wide range of topics including household demographics, agricultural farm holdings, input use, crop choice, levels of commercialization and other non-farm sources of income.

Through participatory vegetable and seed system development, ethnic minority farmers in target sites were organized in value chain groups to jointly produce and market various vegetable seeds/seedlings and vegetables. With the support of project partner and local partners, the groups’ capacity to identify market opportunities and engage with value
chain actors improved, whereby production increased by 5-7 times, from 70 to 400 tons after two years. Group and individual incomes also increased, and one group proceeded to register as a cooperative.

An estimated 11,000 rice and cassava farmers from 23 Agri-cooperatives
in Battambang and Kampong Speu provinces used the agroclimatic
advisories in their planning and decision-making for better risk
management. DeRISK SE Asia introduced the Local Technical
Agroclimatic Committee (LTAC) approach in Cambodia to co-develop
seasonal agroclimatic advisories based on seasonal forecasts with
different type of stakeholders in two target provinces. The advisories
were disseminated through multiple channels, including printed

Climate change and conflicts co-exist in many countries with significant welfare and socio-environmental implications. Different approaches are being promoted to adapt and build resilience to these fragilities including the adoption of sustainable farm practices that have the potential to increase agricultural productivity and maintain environmental sustainability.

Biophysical models are key to inform management activities that can restore degraded soils and ultimately improve biomass production and soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration. Within East Africa several studies have been conducted to evaluate models in annual cropping systems, and to quantify the impacts of different agronomic management options on soil organic carbon and yields. However, no modelling studies exist on perennial forage grasses, which are important for mixed-crop livestock systems within the region.

There is a scarcity of published literature about farmers’ level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding improved forage varieties in East Africa, particularly among the populations where development projects have been and continue to be implemented. This study was carried out to address this knowledge gap and strengthen future scaling activities. We rely on cross-sectional data with a sample of 353 respondents equally drawn from treatment and control areas across 3 districts in Kenya and Uganda respectively.