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Agriculture is crucial to Africa’s development, but the sector is performing well below its potential. Today, about 60 percent of Africa’s population depends on agriculture for jobs and livelihoods, yet its contribution to the gross domestic product was a paltry 21 percent in 2016. While Africa has the highest area of uncultivated arable land (202 million ha) in the world, which is about 50…

States with high exposure to climate hazards face multi-faceted challenges, including physical and livelihood risks for the population that may force states to redirect scarce resources to adaptation or humanitarian response efforts and strain the capacity of states that, in many cases, are still solidifying democratic institutions and mechanisms for meeting public needs…

Between 1998 and 2017 climate-related and geophysical disasters killed 1.3 million people and left a further 4.4 billion injured, homeless, displaced or in need of emergency assistance. While the majority of fatalities were due to geophysical events, mostly earthquakes and tsunamis, 91% of all disasters were caused by floods, storms, droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather events.

Everything that has built modern human society is provided by nature and, increasingly, research demonstrates the natural world’s incalculable importance to our health, wealth, food and security. All economic activity ultimately depends on services provided by nature, estimated to be worth around US$125 trillion a year. As we better understand our reliance on natural systems it’s…

No country in the world is immune to malnutrition in some form or other. In addressing this challenge, everybody has a role to play: the UN, governments (and specific ministries within them), communities and individuals, the private sector and civil society. There is a need to create a conducive environment supported by effective food system policies that will lead to…

There is growing alarm over the increasing frequency and intensity of sand and dust storms and their negative repercussions on the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development in arid and semi-arid regions. This is a global phenomenon, stretching from the Sahara Desert and the Middle East to the Great Indian Desert and the mid-latitude deserts of Central…