Blog Category

Western Africa

Private sector participation is important for agricultural development - but not on its own

Jul 21st, 2025 • by Sara Gustafson

As policymakers and development practitioners aim to boost adoption of new technologies to promote sustainable agricultural development, they are increasingly turning to private sector companies for help. These companies can often provide marketing and financial incentives that the public sector cannot, making them an important potential pathway to reach farmers and increase their use of new technologies.

Northern Nigeria’s hunger crisis: Transforming food aid to rebuild food systems

Jul 14th, 2025 • by David Stevenson, Abdul Kamara, Yero Baldeh, Martin Fregene, and Steven Were Omamo

Humanitarian agencies around the world face a never-ending race against time to save lives in places where conflicts, extreme weather, and other shocks lead to collapsing economies, leaving populations facing hunger and other forms of food insecurity.

The gendered response to farmer-herder violent conflict in Nigeria

Jun 5th, 2025 • by Jeffrey Bloem, Amy Damon, David C. Francis, and Harrison Mitchell

From 2010-2020, Nigeria experienced a sharp rise in violence propagated by the jihadist group Boko Haram in the northeast region and escalating inter-group conflict between farmers and Fulani pastoralists in the north-central region. Boko Haram’s violent attacks led to states of emergency in both 2011 and 2013; and while that group has dominated the news, conflicts between Fulani pastoralists and settled agricultural communities are often more deadly.

Policies to Reduce High-Risk Coping Mechanisms: Evidence from Mali

Mar 2nd, 2025 • by Sara Gustafson

How households respond to systemic shocks—food price volatility, seasonal fluctuations in agricultural production, conflict, pandemics, and extreme weather events—can play an important role in long-term food security, economic stability, and resilience at both the household and the societal level. A new project paper from the CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration finds that in Mali, the coping mechanisms households resort to in the face of such shocks are often high-risk and reactionary.

Transforming rural livelihoods: Lessons from the Africa RISING program

Feb 26th, 2025 • by Carlo Azzarri, Beliyou Haile, and Sedi-Anne Boukaka

Sustainable agricultural development has long been heralded as a vital pathway to alleviating poverty and hunger in Africa, where smallholder farming predominates across diverse landscapes and local conditions changing due to climate impacts and other factors. Sustainable intensification (SI) approaches—tailored to local conditions—offer a range of farming techniques designed to improve growing conditions, yields, and measures of well-being including food security.