Increased investment in agriculture and food systems—from both the private and public sectors—is critical to enhance food security and nutrition, reduce poverty, and adapt to climate change. To generate sustainable benefits, this investment must be responsible. What role should investment incentives play in encouraging such investment? This Guide helps to answer that question. Specifically, the Guide provides policymakers and government technical staff with guidance on how investment incentives can be used (and how they should not be used) to enhance responsible investment in agriculture and food systems. The Guide provides an overview of responsible investment in agriculture and food systems; examines common types of incentives; offers general considerations on how incentives can be used; and discusses how to plan for, design, monitor, and evaluate investment incentives for responsible investment in agriculture and food systems. Also Available in: French Spanish

In some countries, attracting and retaining youth in agriculture may be key to reducing unemployment and distress migration. Youth are three times as likely to be unemployed as adults, with unemployment rates stubbornly stagnating at around 14 percent globally and reaching up to 30 percent in Northern Africa (ILO, 2020). Furthermore, youth are more likely to be in precarious and informal employment and to experience exploitative working conditions (UN, 2013). Burgeoning un- and underemployment in turn fuels rural-urban and international migration, as many rural youth leave their homes in search of a better future. Recent data suggest that 32 percent of international migrants are under the age of 30 (UN, 2015). Since the urban sector has only limited capacities to absorb rural youth migrating to cities in
many of today’s low- and middle- countries and regions, the promotion of self-employment in agricultural value chains, both production and post-harvest activities, remains the most realistic employment promotion strategy governments have at their disposal, at least in the short term.