Zimbabwe

This paper by the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACBIO) reviews the farm input subsidy programmes (FISPs) within countries belonging to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), to ascertain whether input subsidies have benefited small-scale farmers, have increased food security at the household and national levels, and have improved the incomes of small-scale farmers. »

This paper by the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) and the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) gives best practises in exploring market-based solutions for improved input supply. The lessons out of this paper can help donors and policy makers increase the impact of their input support programs. To define these lessons, practitioners managing input-related projects from SNV and KIT, came together at a workshop in Johannesburg in December 2014. »

This report addresses various recommendations to deal with the current El Nino and the forecast of La Nina. According to Oxfam, El Nino was a broadly preventable crisis and the severity of El Nino’s impacts is a reflection of the world’s failure to provide comprehensive and long-term strategies to anticipate, prepare and adapt. To end this cycle of failure, there is an urgent need for humanitarian action where the situation is already dire, to prepare for La Niña later this year, to commit to comprehensive new measures to build communities’ resilience, and to mobilize global action to address climate change. »

This article elaborates on the importance of informal seed markets for African family farmers. Using a comprehensive data set with 9660 observations across six countries and covering 40 crops, the authors show that farmers access 90.2 % of their seed from informal systems with 50.9 % of that deriving from local markets. However, current investments are mostly geared towards formal markets instead of informal ones, while the informal sector remains the core for seed acquisition in Africa. »

A new report published by CGAP presents insights in how digital financial services (DFS) can work for smallholders. Digital tools offer great opportunities for the world’s 450 million smallholder families, but cannot replace personal support, according to the new human-centered design research. Recognizing the need for DFS that better respond to smallholder demand, CGAP partnered in early 2015 with a financial service provider (FSP) in each of Zimbabwe, Senegal, Rwanda, and Cambodia to design a new generation of smallholder-specific digital financial products and services. Under the guidance and expertise of two human-centered design (HCD) firms, CGAP and its FSP partners worked to explore, create, evolve, and test possible digital solutions for smallholder families. »

This briefing note by Oxfam highlights lessons learned from the three-year global programme ‘Putting lessons into practice: Scaling up People’s Biodiversity Management for Food Security’. Findings on innovation and learning from the three partner countries have been consolidated into a global framework, and further conceptualised into six scaling up pathways, to ensure widespread impact—in such a way that social, environmental, or economic conditions can be enhanced beyond the context of this programme. »