FAO’s Strategic Framework (2022–2031) envisages the transformation to more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agrifood systems for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind. In this scope, FAO promotes inclusive economic growth by reducing inequalities between urban and rural areas, rich and poor countries, men and women to attain a better life for all. This report analyses the specific risks and vulnerabilities faced by rural populations in Europe and Central Asia. It highlights the gaps and barriers concerning social protection in the region, which present challenges for addressing the specific vulnerabilities of rural populations and helping them to better manage risks. The report discusses how social protection programmes should be designed and financed to contribute to more inclusive rural transformation processes, improved nutrition and dietary outcomes, women’s empowerment, and other social issues such as child labour. In this scope, the report specifies key entry points for FAO to improve social protection for rural populations in the region. The report concludes that, especially in the post-pandemic period, expanding the coverage, adequacy and comprehensiveness of social protection for rural populations is key to addressing food security and nutrition, rural poverty, developing agriculture, and building resilient and sustainable food systems in Europe and Central Asia.

The State of Social Safety Nets 2018 Report examines global trends in the social safety net/social assistance coverage, spending, and program performance based on the World Bank Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE) updated database. The report documents the main social safety net programs that exist globally and their use to alleviate poverty and to build shared prosperity. The 2018 report expands on the 2015 edition, both in administrative and household survey data coverage. A distinct mark of this report is that, for the first time, it tells the story of what happens with SSN/SA programs spending and coverage over time, when the data allow us to do so. This 2018 edition also features two special themes †“ Social Assistance and Ageing, focusing on the role of old-age social pensions, and Adaptive Social Protection, focusing on what makes SSN systems/programs adaptive to various shocks.

Compared to other regions, Europe and Central Asia are by far the oldest. Moreover, population aging is set to accelerate further over the coming decades as large segments turn old. Additionally, some countries such as Russia and certain Eastern European countries are facing a shrinkage of their population. Against this backdrop, this report investigates what stands in the way of societies reaping the full benefits of increased longevity--that is, longer lives and potentially prolonged payoffs from human capital--and what can help to mitigate the possible negative impacts of a smaller and older workforce. Beginning with a focus on demographic trends, the report puts the rapid decline in fertility and contrasting migration trends in the region in a historical perspective and looks forward to the varying paths that population change may follow in the region. Next, it examines the evidence on the likely impact of demographic change on growth and savings, the labor force, firm and economy-wide innovation, poverty and inequality, and intergenerational solidarity. Finally, the report goes beyond diagnostics and puts an emphasis on what we know regarding successful policy interventions, presenting evidence on what has and has not worked in the past.--Publisher description.

Most rural women and girls experience multiple disadvantages in their lives, because of systematic gender inequalities. Structural drivers, including discriminatory norms, create and maintain gender gaps in development outcomes. Gender transformative programmes seek to address the underlying structural causes of gender inequalities and transform unequal gender roles and relations. This paper aims to orient the future policy, research and programmatic work of national governments, practitioners and development partners on the adoption of a gender transformative approach (GTA) to social protection to improve results on rural poverty reduction, food security and nutrition. Social protection interventions rarely explicitly address social and gender norms and power dynamics at household level and beyond, but there is a growing demand to understand the potential of social protection policies and programmes to contribute to gender transformative outcomes. This paper critically examines the scope for social protection to be gender transformative and discusses the available evidence on gender transformative impacts of social protection. It also aims to identify how programmes can realistically become more transformative in their objectives, design features and outcomes.

The growing economic fissures in the societies of Europe and Central Asia between generations, between insiders and outsiders in the labor market, between rural and urban communities, and between the super-rich and everyone else, are threatening the sustainability of the social contract. The institutions that helped achieving a remarkable degree of equity and prosperity over the course of several decades now face considerable difficulties in coping with the challenges presented by these emerging forms of inequality. Public surveys reveal rising concerns over inequality of opportunity, while electoral results show a marked shift to populist parties that offer radical solutions to voters dissatisfied with the status quo. There is no single solution to relieve these tensions, and attempts to address them will vary considerably across the region. However, this publication proposes three broad policy principles: (1) promote labor market flexibility while maintaining protection for all types of labor contracts; (2) seek universality in the provision of social assistance, social insurance, and basic quality services; and (3) expand the tax base by complementing progressive labor-income taxation with taxation of capital. These principles could guide the rethinking of the social contract and fulfil European citizens’ aspirations for growth and equity.

This report presents the latest updates related to food security and nutrition in Europe and Central Asia, including estimates on the cost and affordability of healthy diets. It also explores how governments are supporting the food and agriculture sector and how to repurpose policies and incentives to make healthy diets more affordable and agrifood systems more environmentally sustainable. The new estimates confirm that the prevalence of hunger at chronic or severe levels is relatively low in the ECA region, through the prevalence of food insecurity at moderate or severe levels can be quite high. The region is seeing alarmingly high – and rising – rates of overweight and obesity. The COVID-19 pandemic has added 25.5 million people in the region to the ranks of the moderately or severely food insecure, leaving them without access to safe, nutritious and adequate food. The war in Ukraine has made the situation worse. Almost all ECA subregions are experiencing increased costs and reduced affordability of healthy diets because of higher food prices and lower incomes. This report contains an in-depth analysis of the repurposing of food and agricultural policies to ensure the food systems transformation is better suited to addressing the “triple challenge” of achieving food security and good nutrition for better health, providing livelihoods to farmers and others connected to the sector, and reducing the nature and climate footprint of the sector. This report also reviews complementing policies within and outside of agrifood systems to assess whether repurposing efforts are impactful in the ECA region.