Women’s equal participation and leadership in political and public life can boost a country’s long-run economic growth, foster social inclusion, and help countries reach the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Beyond these important outcomes, women’s inclusion in public life is a basic human right: women deserve a role in making decisions, controlling resources, and shaping policies. Despite the importance of women’s voices and their empowerment in policy and decision-making processes, it is far easier to lament their absence than to define and measure them.

The Scaling Community Seed Banks and Farmer Seed Enterprises in East and Southern Africa workshop was held in Entebbe, Uganda on 2-4 October 2019, to share experiences about community seed bank management and to develop national pilot scaling proposals. The workshop was organized under the umbrella of the Resilient Seed Systems for Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Livelihoods in East Africa project.

The report gives a summary of a policy workshop that was held in December 2019 to discuss the complex issues related to access to and use of genetic resources for climate change adaptation. In particular, the workshop focussed on policies to support the further use in research and breeding, or possible ‘direct use in cultivation’ of materials that performed well in participatory trials supported by these projects.

CTA’s support with partnerships since 2004 and valued at 932,958 Euros has enabled FANRPAN to raise its profile, increase awareness among a wider audience of its activities and projects, and improve the frequency and quality of its communication and advocacy products to policy-makers, Network members and FANR stakeholders. CTA’s support has largely been directed towards supporting FANRPAN’s communication and advocacy efforts, which are important aspects of the work of a policy research and knowledge network.

Water security is a powerful concept that is still in its early days in the field of nutrition. Given the prevalence and severity of water issues and the many interconnections between water and nutrition, we argue that water security deserves attention commensurate with its importance to human nutrition and health. To this end, we first give a brief introduction to water insecurity and discuss its conceptualization in terms of availability, access, use, and stability. We then lay out the empirical grounding for its assessment.

Climate mitigation technologies and practices have the potential to enhance gender equality and women’s resilience to climate change, if underlying gender norms, intersectional social differences, and sociocultural dynamics are addressed in agrifood systems. This is the key takeaway from a 2023 IRRI scoping review of literature and learnings on gender and climate mitigation across six sectors— agro-ecology, agroforestry, conservation agriculture, improved livestock management, renewable energy, and water conservation.

VALUE4HER is a continental initiative of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) aimed at strengthening women’s agribusiness enterprises and enhancing voice and advocacy across Africa. The initiative aims to increase the performance of women entrepreneurs through access to markets and trade, access to finance and investments, learning, networking, and global advocacy aimed at addressing some of the key barriers to women’s business growth and market participation in agriculture.

This Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) handbook has been developed as a resource material for use by CSA practitioners in providing training, policy advocacy, and upscaling CSA technologies and practices for improving sustainable productivity, adapting to the effects of climate change, and mitigating climate change.

CONTEXT
Population pressure, land scarcity and encroachment of nature reserves are challenging sustainable intensification of agriculture in Uganda. One of the main staple crops in Uganda is East African Highland banana. Area expansion and improved management have enhanced the economic performance of banana, yet at the expense of food security, environmental and social sustainability. While a transition of banana-based farming systems to a more sustainable future seems necessary, the desired future state and pathways of getting there may differ among actors involved.

Consideration to gender matters is important for the equity of climate change adaptation programs and effective food security. The overlaying global socioecological emergencies of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have simultaneously impacted food security. The study assessed the impacts of climate change and COVID-19 outbreak on food security among Maasai using gender lenses. The paper is a result of mixed-methods research design that mainly relied on interviews, focus group discussion, and questionnaire.