Western Africa
Featured blog
Private sector participation is important for agricultural development - but not on its own
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
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
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
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
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.