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Despite continuous positive economic growth at an average of 5% per year, Africa needs accelerated economic development if it is to cope with the increasing demands for food, water and energy challenged by a rapidly growing population, rapid urbanisation and climate change. The pressure on African countries to boost productivity and accelerate growth is now higher than ever, and is being further…

We face a global food crisis of many dimensions. Food prices for the poor are rising and volatile. About a billion people are chronically hungry. Most shocking of all, 1 in 3 children under the age of five are seriously malnourished and will grow up physically and mentally stunted. At the same time, some two billion people are overweight or obese. Furthermore, we have to feed a growing…

In this report, the Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative outlines opportunities and benefits for the private sector in directly and indirectly investing in sustainable land management. These come through improved yields of goods like food, fibre, and timber, new business opportunities and novel markets, and creating and ensuring social “licences to operate”. It builds on the previous…

Latin America and the Caribbean’s story in the 2000s was one of rapid progress for many. More than 70 million people moved out of poverty and started on the path to a better life for themselves and their families. The middle class grew at an impressive rate, and despite recent slowdowns in growth, remains a large segment of Latin American society. Income inequalities shrank between those at the…

The rationale behind this water accounting and auditing sourcebook is that scope exists worldwide to improve water-related sectoral and inter-sectoral decision-making at local, regional and national levels. Improvements can often be initiated by basing decisions on‘best-available’ information, evidence and analysis – rather than intuition, assumptions and guesswork. Of course, it would be…

The review was conducted with the aim to provide guidance for future engagement / investments, in particular in the context of recent AU declarations on agriculture and on land restoration by NEPAD, GEF, TerrAfrica, the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahel and Sahara (GGWISS), UN agencies and other donors. This paper provides an abridged summary of the findings for easier access by…