Food-insecure households in many countries depend on international aid to alleviate acute shocks and chronic shortages. Some food security programmes (including Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program–PSNP – which provides a case study for this article) have integrated aid in exchange for labour on…

Regenerating Urban Land draws on the experience of eight case studies from around the world. The case studies outline various policy and financial instruments to attract private sector investment in urban regeneration of underutilized and unutilized areas and the requisite infrastructure…

The goal of the project is to reduce food insecurity and improve livelihoods of poor people living in African drylands by restoring degraded land, and returning it to effective and sustainable tree, crop and livestock production, thereby increasing land profitability and landscape and livelihood…

In a recent review, FAO identified that 41 out of 54 countries in Africa included at least one policy or measure on more sustainable use of bioenergy in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). Considering the critical role of sustainable bioenergy in sub-Saharan Africa, FAO’s…

Twenty-seven policy briefs were authored for the Global Preparatory Meeting for Review of SDG 7. IRENA released two reports, on renewable energy market analysis for Southeast Asia and prospects for the EU. A joint report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance and Facebook looks at options for bridging the…

The Land and Poverty conference will present the latest research and practice on the diversity of reforms, interventions, and innovations in the land sector around the world. The 2018 conference theme will be: Land Governance in an Interconnected World

Special Issue Title: The Economics of Land Degradation and Desertification (UNCCD Second Scientific Conference)

Land Degradation & Development Volume 29, Issue 4 Pages i - i, 861 - 1302, April 2018 Special Issue Title: Restoration and Rehabilitation of Degraded Land in Arid and Semi‐Arid Environments Ecophysiological Indicators to Assess Drought Responses of Arid Zone Native Seedlings in Reconstructed Soils…

Land Degradation & Development Volume 29, Issue 4 Pages i - i, 861 - 1302, April 2018 RESEARCH ARTICLES

Today, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) released a new in-depth guide for policymakers on carbon pricing. The organization and its members believe that carbon pricing is one of the most efficient means of driving the transition to a low-carbon world. Strong business…

"Land degradation is estimated to cost the global economy from $2 to $4.5 trillion a year, while economic benefits of restoration efforts are an estimated $84 billion a year, according to a report in Environmental Research Letters, and statistics from World Resources Institute. The purpose of the…

Climate-smart interventions in agriculture have varying costs and environmental and economic impacts. Their implementation requires appropriate investment decisions by policy makers that are relevant for current as well as future scenarios of agro-ecology, climate and economic development. Decision…

This infographic shows the interactions and key questions around the relationship triangle of water, energy and food security, like: What are energy efficient water-treatment technologies? How does watershed management help hydropower? What technologies make irrigation more water efficient? et al.

The Lancet Planetary Health is a new online-only title in The Lancet’s growing family of specialty journals, joining The Lancet Public Health and The Lancet Global Health to provide a third pillar in The Lancet’s open-access programme. Building on the foundation of The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet…

Researchers have proposed a global roadmap for decarbonisation over the coming decades. The roadmap is based on the idea of a simple heuristic, described by the researchers as ‘carbon law’, of halving carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions every decade from 2020 to 2050. The researchers say that, if…

The cultivation of bioenergy plants at fertile, arable lands increasingly results in new land use conflicts with food production and cannot be considered as sustainable, therefore. Marginal lands have been frequently considered as potential alternative for producing bioenergy from biomass. However…

This paper conceptually integrates resilience and nexus approaches, developing a combined framework and indicating how it could effectively be operationalized in cases from mountain and mangrove social‐ecological systems. In doing so, it advances understanding of complex social‐ecological systems…

The report — Mechanized: Transforming Africa’s Agriculture Value Chains—summarizes the findings of a systematic analysis of what countries at the forefront of progress in mechanization have done right. It analyzes which policy decisions were taken and which interventions were implemented to…

Soil organic matter (SOM) supports the Earth's ability to sustain terrestrial ecosystems, provide food and fiber, and retains the largest pool of actively cycling carbon. Over 75% of the soil organic carbon (SOC) in the top meter of soil is directly affected by human land use. Large land areas have…

This report explores the lack of governance as a structural driver of resource conflict in the region and identifies a mix of short- and long-term measures to increase the legitimacy of the Malian state.

Global food security and agricultural land management represent two urgent and intimately related challenges that humans must face. The authors quantify the changes in the global agricultural land footprint if the world were to adhere to the dietary guidelines put forth by the United States…

Better land management practices can sequester enough carbon to lower global temperatures

Today, the New Climate Economy launches its 2018 report, Unlocking the Inclusive Growth Story of the 21st Century: Accelerating Climate Action in Urgent Times. It demonstrates the benefits of a new low-carbon growth model and outlines how we can urgently accelerate efforts to achieve it. Bold action…

Agroforestry (AF) has the potential to restore degraded lands, provide a broader range of ecosystem goods and services such as carbon (C) sequestration and high biodiversity, and increase soil fertility and ecosystem stability through additional C input from trees, erosion prevention, and…

All the electricity the world needs can come from clean energy, reliably and throughout the year, British researchers say, at any time of day or night.