Group items tagged

"The quantification of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions represents a critical issue for the future development of agro-food produces. Consumers' behaviour could play an important role in requiring environmental performance as an essential element for food quality. Nowadays, the carbon footprint (CFP) is a tool used worldwide by agro-food industries to communicate environmental information. This paper aims to investigate the role that CFP could have in consumers' choices in three significant agro-food sectors in the Mediterranean area: wine, olive oil and cereals. A critical review about the use of CFP was carried out along the supply chain of these three sectors, in order to identify opportunities for enhancing food quality and environmental sustainability and highlighting how environmental information could influence consumers' preferences. "

With financial support from the government of Sweden, the AAU will make grants of up to US$600 per person to help post-graduate university students acquire practical skills via internships of 12-24 weeks. The grants are for training purposes only, not for the completion of theses or dissertations. The program is open to students in AAU member institutions in southern and eastern Africa, and in Francophone member institutions. The deadline for applications (English, French) is 15 August 2016.

Agribusiness and entrepreneurship are two critical areas which have a strong potential to increase employment opportunities for youth and to boost economies in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. Similarly, the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is modernising the agricultural sector and providing more opportunities for youth. In particular, young farmers who apply ICT tools and skills to their farming businesses generally have higher yields, incomes and social status.

Increasing agricultural productivity in developing countries and promoting youth employment and entrepreneurship are important recommendations of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) play an important role. Young entrepreneurs using ICT innovations are particularly suited to contribute to increased agricultural productivity and sustainability given their inventiveness, energy and capacity to take risks.

"Using statistical analysis, this African Development Bank's publication titled 'Youth Unemployment and Political Instability in Selected Developing Countries' shows that in a given context, an exceptionally high youth unemployment rate makes African countries more prone to political instability. The authors studied a sample of 24 developing countries from the period 1980 to 2010. They found that in Africa, youth unemployment is made worse by a large youth population, weak national labor markets and persistent poverty. "

"Morocco has a population of about thirty million inhabitants, 45 percentage of who live in rural areas. This rate has been declining steadily for the past fifty years, though the rural exodus rate seems to have slowed down over the past decade. With a population growth rate that has also slowed down (1.4 percentage per year), the country is going through a demographic transition, or 'demographic windfall', with a significant increase in the working population estimated at 11.2 million people in 2005. On the whole, agriculture employs 43 percentage of the economically active population, but this rate goes up to 80 percentages in rural areas. Keeping in mind the 'entries' and 'exits' from the work force, the additional number of the individuals able to work was estimated in 2005 at 460,000 people, and the additional number of jobseekers is estimated at 380,000 per year for the next ten years. "

"ANAFE is planning a workshop on development of learning materials to be held on on 9 - 13 December 2013 in Cote D'Ivoire. The deadline for applications is set for 17 November 2013. While we are still accepting applications, we would like to open an electronic discussion for those interested in working on specific subject areas. This will enable us constitute teams to work on different chapters depending on their interests and/or expertise."

"The Italian dello Stretto FLAG from Calabria is urgently looking for partners for a transnational cooperation project called SHADES, or "Sustainable and Holistic Approaches to Development in European Seaboards". The project focuses on Integrated Coastal Management (ICM and aims to facilitate an exchange of information and know-how on ICM and develop guidelines for mainstreaming integrated coastal management in partners' areas. Please contact the FLAG by the 23rd December 2013 if this area of work is of interest to you. Cooperation Factsheet - Integrated Coastal Management "

"The importance of financial literacy and specifically the need to promote financial education has been recognised as an important contributor to improved financial inclusion and individuals' financial well-being as well as a support to financial stability. The relevance of financial education policies is acknowledged at the highest global policy level: in 2012, G20 Leaders endorsed the OECD/INFE High-level Principles on National Strategies for Financial Education that specifically identify youth as one of the priority targets of government policies in this domain. That same year, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers of Finance identified financial literacy as a critical life skill."

Ethiopia's farmers are flocking to a hotline that provides free agricultural advice about planting crops, using fertiliser and preparing land as part of a government initiative to turn subsistence farmers into surplus sellers. The automated hotline has received nearly 1.5m calls from more than 300,000 farmers since it launched 12 weeks ago, according to Khalid Bomba, CEO of the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), an internationally backed government initiative. The 90 lines are now taking an average of 35,000 calls a day.

To engage youth in agriculture, The MasterCard Foundation and SNV are partners in facilitating access to secure jobs, financial services and skills for young people to grow their own businesses.

Visiting the agricultural development projects supported by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in Mozambique, I was amazed by the number of young faces I saw in the villages. However, the resounding sentiment is that young people do not want to be farmers. This is causing deep concern amongst many over how to keep the growing youth of Mozambique in agriculture. With the 11th highest birth rate in the world, and a growth rate of 2.45% a year, the population of Mozambique is growing, fast. More food will soon be needed to sustain the expanding population.

"From 24 to 27 of June, the World Farmers' Organization held in Milan the general assembly having three main topics to discuss: 1) respond to the nine billions world population with sustainable, equitable and inclusive solutions; 2) smart solutions for facing climate evolution; 3) meeting growing agricultural challenges with innovation solutions."

"Hello ! we are organizing the 2014 International conference on Capacity Building! Here following you'll find practical instructions and links to take part. If you would like to have more information, feel free to contact us. In case instead this message could be not at all of your interest, please accept our sincere apologies. Best regards Giovanni Crisonà @ CB4LLP Secretariat info@capacitybuilding.eu +3905735044"

"Colleagues I am looking to ascertain (based best practices) what model should be used to train teachers for the technical vocational system? Should pre-service teachers be recruited with already existing technical skills or should they be recruited for teacher training without technical skills and be given both technical and pedagogical training? Reference to what happens in your country would be very helpful." Sent: 2014-09-03 22:52 #1 Subject: Model for training of TechVoc Teachers ? From: Gennette Clacken [gclacken@heart-nta.org]

Date: 23 Mar 2015 - 27 Mar 2015 The International Training Centre (ITC) of the ILO will undertake a course on "Monitoring and impact evaluation of youth employment programmes" from the 23rd to the 27th of March 2015. The course aims to improve the capacity to build rigorous monitoring and impact evaluation plans for youth employment programmes. Lieu: International Training Centre of the ILO Turin Italia

"TVET experts from the European Union met in Brussels on 17 November to discuss the preliminary findings of a study on the Internationalization of TVET in EU countries, and the European Commission's role in this. The purpose of the study is to map policies and practices from the EU, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), Australia and five International Organizations that support international cooperation in TVET, including UNESCO. A set of recommendations for future actions at the European and national levels will be included in the study's final report. UNESCO was represented at the meeting by Katerina Ananiadou, programme specialist at UNESCO-UNEVOC. The study was commissioned by the Directorate-General for Education and Culture and carried out by International http://www.icfi.com. The Commission and the contractors gathered feedback on the preliminary findings from national and international experts. Their feedback will be incorporated in the final version of the study, which is due to be published in December 2014."

"Inclusion makes headway. Inclusive education has been considered internationally as a fundamental structuring principle of the right to education at the latest since the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted. The open working group to devise the post-2015 agenda for sustainable development has proposed the following global objective for the education sector: 'ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all'. However, there is still a lack of theoretical knowledge and educational practice relating to how inclusion can be realised in the education systems of developing countries and thus how the goal of education for all can be implemented."

"The Erasmus Mundus International Masters in Rural Development (IMRD) programme offers the opportunity to study international visions on rural development to students both from within as outside of the European Union. Students are offered the opportunity to become a specialist in integrated rural development, through a two year master programme jointly organised by six European leading institutes in Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, in collaboration with several partners in the United States, China, Ecuador, India and South Africa."

CTA organised the CTA Top 20 cross-learning write-shop from 13-17 October 2014. The meeting brought together authors and case owners of the CTA Top 20 innovations, technical experts, editors and designers to produce: (i) Fact sheets, guidebooks and posters of the CTA Top 20 innovations for widespread dissemination in print and electronic formats; (ii) a publication/manuscript consisting of the CTA Top 20 innovations as case stories and; (iii) a technical report on the CTA Top 20 as input into a policy brief on scaling up innovations. It is expected that by increasing access to existing knowledge on the CTA Top 20 innovations, this will contribute to increasing productivity and earning potential of smallholder farmers. The write-shop was a success.