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Over the next 6-18 months, it is estimated that countries will invest more than USD 20 trillion to recover from the fallout of COVID-19, with the global economy expected to shrink by 3% this year. The makeup of these financial decisions – and the industries and economic sectors that governments choose to support – will define the shape of our societies and economies for decades to come. At…

Over the past three decades hundreds of thousands of farmers in Burkina Faso and Niger, on the fringes of the Sahara Desert, have transformed large swathes of the region’s arid landscape into productive agricultural land, improving food security for about three million people. Once-denuded landscapes are now home to abundant trees, crops, and livestock.' Sahelian farmers, driven to…

For rural people, especially low-income rural people, land and livelihood are one and the same. Access to land means the opportunity to earn a decent income and achieve food and nutrition security, and it can also pave the way for access to social benefits such as health care and education. A lack of secure land access, on the other hand, can disempower rural people and expose them to the…

Coffee is a big deal. While just a handful of countries dominate production, it’s consumed in vast amounts almost everywhere on the planet: around 2 billion cups are drunk every day. All that coffee produces a lot of waste. Coffee grounds often end up in landfill or being washed into sinks and drains, contributing to the food waste problem – around a third of all food produced is…

In February, 2020, the WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission's report A Future for the World's Children? examined threats facing children—from climate change and related crises of poverty, migration, and malnutrition; commercial marketing of harmful substances; and across all sectors, from unsafe roads and hazardous housing to inadequate education and social protection.1 The COVID-19 pandemic is…

Two Andean agricultural engineers are learning from their ancestors and catching water in artificial ‘lagoons’ to avoid drought. They are being built high in the Peruvian mountains to cope with the effects of melting glaciers that leave many communities short of water. About 40 years ago, the snow that once covered the Andes mountains near the Peruvian city of Ayacucho started to…