All publications and documents

A major UN conference on fighting desertification agreed on Friday to make the Sustainable Development Goal target of achieving “land degradation neutrality” (LDN), a national target for action. The Governments which are party to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), met in the Indian capital of New Delhi over ten days for COP14, adopting a series of breakthrough measures in the…

Differentiated gender roles and activities The economic and social organization of rural societies has a high level of gender differentiation in terms of rights, activities and responsibilities. This interacts with other aspects of social stratification based on factors such as ethnicity, statutory groups, religion and level of wealth. Consequently, women do not represent a…

Soil carbon: multiple functions benefiting societies and the environment Soil organic matter (SOM)—and thus organic carbon which accounts for over 50% of its mass—has a key role in the overall behaviour of soils and the agroecosystems they support: soil physical qualities, stimulation of soil biological activity, water and nutrient storage and availability for plants and pollutant…

The African Great Green Wall initiative has reopened discussions on this concept, its significance with respect to combating desertification, as well as its effectiveness and cost Based on fragmentary knowledge culled from sometimes very early experience, the scientific community, civil society organization and the media have focused on the situation and issued public criticisms and…

Africa in general, and the Sahel in particular, is often identified as the region where climate change is most likely to undermine security and trigger violent conflict. This is a function of the region’s history of violent conflict and its perceived vulnerability to climate change. The extent to which this is the case, and the possible measures that might address this, are the focus of this…

Over the past decade, food security has emerged as a major challenge in cities and as a crucial issue for urban planners. Despite being a relatively new aspect of urban planning, local food system management has a long and varied history. Key messages >Urbanisation affects every aspect of food systems, from how food is produced to how it is processed, packaged, transported,…