Knowledge Portal

This report by ING addresses the benefits of FinTech for MSMEs in developing countries. The role of FinTech is centre-stage in the discussion on how to financially include poor people in developing economies. This report shifts the focus on to MSMEs as they are important job creators at the bottom of the pyramid. The report contains 10 main insights that could offer important opportunities for the agro-food sector. According to the authors, FinTech has the potential to impact the whole financial value chain and thus improve financial access for MSMEs. »

This article, published in the Food Security journal, investigates the effect of household education attainment on food security among poor urban households, using longitudinal data collected between 2007 and 2012 in Kenya. Poverty and food insecurity continue to feature prominently in the global agenda, with particularly close attention being paid to the determinants of food insecurity. However, the effect of education is mixed and remains understudied in low income countries. »

This article provides a coherent systhesis and review of the evidence of claims of on-farm conservation land management strategies and agro-ecology. An extensive body of evidence in the field of agro-ecology claims to show the positive effects that maintenance of ecosystem services can have on meeting future food demand by making farms more sustainable, productive and resilient, which then contributes to improved nutrition and livelihoods of farmers. »

This report by IFPRI dealt with opportunities for making Africa’s food system deliver healthier and more nutritious, making these foods more available and affordable to all people, and promoting better food consumption patterns as African economies develop. This is an important moment for shaping the region’s future and ensuring that the much-needed agriculture-led growth and development agenda can simultaneously deliver on improving nutrition, saving lives, improving productivity and health, and curbing nutrition-related diseases and the associated public health expenditures. »

This note by GFRAS argues that it is important to include men in nutrition initiatives to turn around food discrimination. Women may learn a lot from courses on good nutrition, but excluding men means that women may not be able to act on their improved knowledge. Men may feel angry because their own nutritional needs are ignored. »

This report by the Global Network For The Right To Food And Nutrition concludes that transnational corporations are monopolizing control over seeds with dire consequences for human rights and biodiversity. Increasingly, seed and agrochemical businesses seek to privatize, monopolize and control seeds by patenting and commodifying this very source of life. Meanwhile, peasant and indigenous communities, who have been the developers and guardians of seeds for millennia, are finding their rights to save, use, exchange and sell seeds overshadowed by a corporate agenda that prioritizes profit over human rights and the sustainable maintenance of nature. »