Investments that reduce food loss and waste can deliver big wins on two pressing issues of our time: food security and environmental sustainability, according to a new World Bank report. But the results are not automatic -- countries need well-targeted solutions.

Resilience-building planning in drylands requires a participatory, integrated approach that incorporates issues of scale (often large scale) and the interconnectedness of dryland ecological and social systems. In an often political environment that supports small, “manageable” administrative units and the decentralisation of power and resources to them, planning at large scale is particularly challenging; development agents in particular may find it difficult to work across administrative boundaries and/or collaboratively.

Key findings of the Sustainable Development Report 2019
World nations obtain their worst performance on SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water), and SDG 15 (Life on Land). No country obtains a “green rating” (the report’s indicator for the achievement of an SDG) on SDG 14 (Life Below Water).

The 2019 Africa SDG Index and Dashboards Report is a call for action not only to meet the SDGs but also to ensure timely and high-quality data on SDG indicators. The report focuses on the efforts that African governments are taking to incorporate the SDGs into their national strategies, budgets, public engagements, and coordination among branches of government. This report includes all 54 African countries and their country profiles.

The Arab region is a diverse one when it comes to sustainable development. In recent years and decades, we have seen both major success stories in prosperity and stability, but we have also witnessed tragic conflicts and wars. At the same time, the 22 countries of the region are bound together by a common history, language and culture. We share many similar challenges and opportunities. Instability and human insecurity are in no one’s interest.

This report comes at a critical time for Europe. The new President and Commission have already committed to a European Green Deal to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. They have further pledged to place the SDGs at the centre of the European Semester – the Union’s framework for the coordination of economic policies across member states. Indeed, in their mission letters each new Commissioner is asked to ensure “the delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals within their policy area.

US cities are at the forefront of the sustainable development challenge. They contain 80% of the country’s population, and therefore have the capacity to make or break SDG achievement (US Census Bureau 2016). But, while crucial to SDG attainment, they Executive Summary cannot accomplish this alone. While 80 percent of US residents live in urban areas, only 3 percent of land is urban; rural and urban areas are deeply interconnected (US Census Bureau 2016).

The Sustainable Development Report 2019 – Mediterranean Countries Edition is a synthetic review of the fourth edition of the Sustainable Development Report 2019, including integrated contents and tables editing, specifically focusing on 23 Mediterranean countries. It was drafted by a team of experts of the University of Siena – Santa Chiara Lab, as hosting institution of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the Mediterranean Area (SDSN-Mediterranean), in an effort to raise awareness on the SDGs and foster the implementation of transformation strategies.

This 2019 SDG Index and Dashboards Report for European Cities (prototype version) provides an overview of the performance of 45 capital cities and large metropolitan areas on the Agenda 2030 and 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by global leaders in September 2015 at the UN Sustainable Development Summit.

The Sustainable Rangeland Management Project (SRMP) aims at securing land and resource rights of pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and crop farmers, while improving land management by supporting village and district land use planning and rangeland management in Kiteto, Bahi, Chamwino and Kondoa Districts in Tanzania. More broadly, it aims at influencing policy formulation and implementation on these issues.

Rangelands provide numerous goods and services that have great economic, social, cultural, and biological value. Inhabitants of rangelands have engineered pastoral, hunter-gatherer, and farming systems that have sustained their livelihoods in these usually dry environments for centuries. Primarily, rangelands are grazing-dependent systems, characterised by dry periods and droughts. However, these characteristics should not be a barrier to development and can be managed through careful planning and management of resources.

The institution of slavery is found mostly at intermediate stages of agricultural development, and less often among hunter-gatherers and advanced agrarian societies. We explain this pattern in a growth model with land and labor as inputs in production, and an endogenously determined property rights institution. The economy endogenously transits from an egalitarian state with equal property rights, to a despotic slave society where the elite own both people and land; thereafter it endogenously transits into a free labor society, where the elite own the land, but people are free.