This paper analyses how the relationship between decent rural employment and agricultural productivity vary across production systems. The focus is on sub-Saharan Africa, taking Ethiopia and Tanzania as case studies. A latent class stochastic frontier approach is applied to identify different production systems and technologies for a sample of farms in the two countries. Subsequently, we estimate the efficiency of production for these systems and investigate in how far decent rural employment indicators explain different levels of efficiencies across different latent classes.

A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Sub-Saharan Africa's rural population is growing rapidly, and more young people are entering the labour market every year. This raises serious policy questions. Can rural economies absorb enough job seekers? Could better-educated youth transform Africa's rural economies by adopting new technologies and starting businesses? Are policymakers responding to the youth employment challenge? Or will there be widespread unemployment, social instability, and an exodus to cities and abroad? Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa: Beyond Stylized Facts uses survey data to build a nuanced understanding of the constraints and opportunities facing rural youth in Africa. Addressing the questions of Africa's rural youth is currently hampered by major gaps in our knowledge and stylized facts from cross-country trends or studies that do not focus on the core issues. Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa takes a different approach, drawing on household and firm surveys from selected African countries with an explicit focus on rural youth. It argues that a balance between alarm and optimism is warranted, and that Africa's "youth bulge" is not an unprecedented challenge. Jobs in rural areas are limited, but agriculture is transforming and youth are participating, adopting new technologies and running businesses. Governments have adopted youth employment as a priority, but policies often do not address the specific needs of rural populations. Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa emphasizes that by going beyond stylized facts and drawing on more granular analysis, we can design effective policies to turn Africa's youth problem into an opportunity for rural transformation.

The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2016-2025 provides an assessment of prospects for the coming decade of the agricultural commodity markets across 41 countries and 12 regions, including OECD countries and key agricultural producers, such as India, China, Brazil, the Russian Federation and Argentina.

For African cities to grow economically as they have grown in size, they must create productive environments to attract investments, increase economic efficiency, and create livable environments that prevent urban costs from rising with increased population densification. What are the central obstacles that prevent African cities and towns from becoming sustainable engines of economic growth and prosperity? Among the most critical factors that limit the growth and livability of urban areas are land markets, investments in public infrastructure and assets, and the institutions to enable both. To unleash the potential of African cities and towns for delivering services and employment in a livable and environmentally friendly environment, a sequenced approach is needed to reform institutions and policies and to target infrastructure investments. This book lays out three foundations that need fixing to guide cities and towns throughout Sub-Saharan Africa on their way to productivity and livability.

"This Case for Action urges that improving policy coherence between employment and agricultural initiatives and investigating more in the promotion of decent rural employment contribute highly to the interlinked challenges of fighting rural poverty and feeding a growing world population in a sustainable way. Even more importantly, decent work is a fully fledged human right, enshrined in international human rights law, to which each person is entitled as a means of personal development and socio-economic inclusion. While the ILO leads the Global Employment and Decent Work Agenda, FAO has a crucial comparative advantage in promoting decent work in rural areas, specifically with respect to employment in agriculture, including livestock, forestry, fisheries and management of natural resources, as well as agroprocessing and retailing. Given its mandate to raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations and contribute to the growth of the world economy, FAO has a significant responsibility within this context. This Case for Action further clarifies the reasoning behind this statement and suggests entry points for increased synergies and inter-disciplinary collaboration."--Introduction.

This book provides a detailed history of farming systems research (FSR). While it includes the application of FSR to developed country agriculture, its main focus is on FSR in its original role, with small scale, resource-poor farmers in less developed countries. There are some 40 contributions from nearly 50 contributors from 20 countries, illustrating both the diversity and yet the coherence of FSR. The five parts of the book cover: (1) FSR - understanding farmers and their farming (FSR origins and perspectives; understanding farming systems); (2) the applications of farming systems research (FSR in technology choice and development; FSR in extension and policy formulation); (3) institutional commitment to FSR (FSR: some institutional experiences in national agricultural research; dimensions of the organization of FSR; training for FSR); (4) FSR: the professional dimension (regional and international associations; FSR and the professional disciplines); and (5) cutting edge methods, abiding issues and the future for FSR.