Sub-Saharan Africa

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. »

This working paper elaborates on new approaches to land tenure reform with regard to securing customary land rights in Sub-Saharan Africa. The conventional approach for securing property rights to land is by establishing a system of private ownership through individual titling and has often not led to the intended improvements in agricultural investments and productivity. Instead it has had several negative social implications. »

The Africa Agriculture Status Report 2014 (PDF) presents a comprehensive overview of smallholder agriculture in Africa and addresses the ‘climate-smart agricultural’ (CSA) sector in the continent. The role of soil fertility and plant nutrition in strengthening the vigor of farming systems and make them less vulnerable to climate change is explicitly addressed in this report. »

Morningstar analysts published a report (PDF) that covers aspects of the emerging markets’ diet as an important growth driver for consumption– from trends in meat and dairy consumption, to those in beer and processed food. The focus of the paper is on China, India, Brazil, Southeast Asia (mainly Indonesia), and sub-Saharan Africa. By use of global and country-level data, links between diets and incomes and the important roles of urbanization, culture, religion, geography and biology are examined. »

In this study (PDF) by FAO, authors analyse the linkages between property rights and adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA). First, they discuss key characteristics of four CSA practices related to sustainable land management. Then, they lay out a conceptual framework for evaluating the pathways by which expanding property rights and strengthening tenure security affects incentives to adopt technologies broadly, and finally apply the framework to each of the four CSA practices. »