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April 23, 2015Knowledge Portal
Lessons learned from sustainable agricultural value chain financing in Zimbabwe

This case study highlights how SNV helped create an enabling ecosystem for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through access to finance and business development services. SNV, with support from Hivos and other partners, established the Zimbabwe Agricultural Development Trust (ZADT) in the pursuit of their common objective of providing sustainable financial support to value chain actors. »

April 22, 2015Knowledge Portal
Developing beans that can beat the heat

This document (PDF) by CIAT/CGAIR, reports findings from research conducted over the last year on heat tolerance in selected bean lines and show their potential for adapting bean production in Africa and Latin America to future climate change impacts. The paper highlights that high temperatures will become limiting for common bean, especially Latin America is »

April 22, 2015Knowledge Portal
Preliminary Report Regional Access to Seeds Index for Eastern Africa

The Access to Seeds Foundation has commissioned a study focused on improving access to seeds by smallholder farmers. The report (PDF) provides baseline information on the East African regional seed sector detailing both regional and country specific scenarios. The research is based on existing literature and interviews with regional and national seed sector actors. Twelve countries are included: Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. »

April 22, 2015Knowledge Portal
Understanding ‘urban youth’ and the challenges they face in Sub-Saharan Africa: unemployment, food insecurity and violent crime

This publication (PDF) by IDS reviews how the various definitions of ‘youth’ relate to three dominant discourses about poverty and vulnerability in urbanising Africa: 1) food insecurity; 2) unemployment; and 3) violence/insecurity. The paper’s discussion of common youth definitions seeks to identify if and when these are responsive to the needs of urban youth as well as practical for policy efforts aimed at reducing poverty and vulnerability in urban areas. »

April 20, 2015Knowledge Portal
Food riots and food rights: the moral and political economy of accountability for hunger

This report (PDF) synthesises the findings from four country case studies produced for the DFID-ESRC project. The paper explores causes and consequences of food-related riots and right-to-food movements in Bangladesh, India, Kenya and Mozambique in the period 2007-2012. »

April 18, 2015Knowledge Portal
Gender matters in farm power

This report explores how gender matters in small-scale farm power mechanization in African agriculture, particularly in maize-based systems. It investigates how inter-household gender dynamics affect women’s articulation of demand for and adoption of mechanization in Ethiopia and Kenya. The study offers a conceptual approach to grasp these gender dynamics, a gender analysis methodology, and a set of recommendations. »