The recent popularity of the term resilience in the development discourse concerning arid and semiarid lands in Africa can be traced to two major international issues. The first is climate change, concerned with how to build resilient communities in the face of increasingly extreme weather events. The other is recurrent humanitarian crises, especially traced to the most recent drought‐ and conflict‐induced 2011 disaster in the Horn of Africa.

Alors qu’il ne reste plus qu’une année avant la date d’échéance de la réalisation des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le développement, l’Indice de la faim dans le monde 2014 (GHI) offre une analyse multidimensionnelle de la faim et présente de nouvelles données permettant d’alimenter le débat mondial sur la question de savoir où concentrer les efforts dans la lutte contre la faim et la malnutrition. Selon le GHI 2014, les niveaux de faim dans les pays en développement pris dans leur ensemble se sont améliorés depuis 1990, diminuant de 39%.

T he Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) committed to the mitigation of the effects of climate change by signing the Kyoto Protocol for climate change and other related environmental management protocols. Since 1994, DRC has produced two national climate change communication documents (RDC, Ministère de l’Environnement, Conservation de la Nature, Eaux, et Forêts 2001; RDC, Ministère de l’Environnement, Conservation de la Nature et Tourisme 2009).

The purpose of the work presented in this report is to demonstrate that policymakers have tools at their disposal that provide significant help in the evaluation of trade-offs, opportunities, and repercussions of the policies under consideration. This report focuses on Colombia, however the analytical framework can be applied to any country interested in exploring country-wide effects and economic viability of policies that aim to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture. Results provided in this study should be seen as an example of the potential applications of the framework developed.

With one more year before the 2015 deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the 2014 Global Hunger Index report offers a multifaceted overview of global hunger that brings new insights to the global debate on where to focus efforts in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. The state of hunger in developing countries as a group has improved since 1990, falling by 39 percent, according to the 2014 GHI.

L’Indice de la faim dans le monde 2013 (GHI), élaboré à partir de données couvrant la période 2008-2012, montre que le niveau de la faim dans le monde s’est amélioré depuis 1990, diminuant d’un tiers. En dépit des progrès réalisés, le niveau de la faim demeure « grave », avec 870 millions de personnes souffrant de la faim selon des estimations de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture (FAO). Les scores GHI varient considérablement en fonction des régions et des pays. L’Asie du Sud et l’Afrique subsaharienne concentrent les scores GHI les plus élevés.

The AgriTech Toolbox enables researchers and policymakers to examine how alternative agricultural practices and technologies can impact farm yields, food prices, natural resource use, hunger, malnutrition, land use and global trade in 2050, when climate change impacts may be severe. As a result, it can inform the right mix of policies and investments needed to tackle the challenges agriculture faces in the coming decades. The AgriTech toolbox models the impacts of 10 technologies on farm yields, food prices, natural resource use, hunger, malnutrition, land use and global trade.

Climate change has been a significant issue since the end of the 20th century, and impacts a variety of economic sectors, primarily agriculture. The negative impacts of climate change on agricultural production are important because agriculture is closely linked to food security. Although they contribute the least to global pollution, it is estimated that African countries will be the most affected by climate variability.

Die globale Hungersituation hat sich seit 1990 verbessert, wie der Welthunger-Index 2013 anhand von Daten aus dem Zeitraum 2008-2012 zeigt. Der WHI ist um ein Drittel gesunken. Dennoch ist die weltweite Hungersituation nach wie vor „ernst“. 870 Millionen Men­schen hatten laut Schätzungen der Ernährungs- und Landwirtschafts­organisation der Vereinten Nationen (FAO) im Mittel der Jahre 2010-2012 nicht genug zu essen. Südasien und Afrika südlich der Sahara haben die höchsten WHI-Werte.

There is widespread agreement that our ability to deliver sustainable food security for all will be challenged in three dimensions—population growth, constrained natural resources, and climate change. Investments in agricultural productivity are essential to dealing with these challenges. This suggests that cooperation across these two sets of institutions (FAO and the CGIAR) to take advantage of their expertise could result in better understanding for all.

This policy note summarizes research examining the medium-term impact of land registration in Ethiopia on household investment behavior, specifically in terms of the adoption of soil conservation techniques and tree planting. The research investigated whether men’s and women’s knowledge of their land rights—defined as tenure security, land transfer rights, and rights related to gender equity and inheritance—had an impact on their investment behavior.

Recent experience has shown that as countries get richer, nutritional status does not necessarily improve. In a recent article in the journal The Lancet, IFPRI researchers and others explain that creating the right conditions for nutritional advances often requires political action. The feature article in this issue of Insights looks at how some developing countries and regions—Ghana, Peru, Thailand, and the state of Maharashtra, India—have made nutrition a political priority and how they’ve turned political commitments into widespread changes on the ground.