News Overview

By Patti Petesch, Eleanor Fisher, Jon Hellin and Chona Echavez  Our social world appears to spin in ways that reinforce social inequities and environmental degradation. These dispiriting forces are the case in so many of the world’s smallholder communities, discouraging countless local women’s and men’s initiatives to reduce the vulnerability of their agricultural livelihoods and exposure to severe heatwaves, droughts,

Land is far more than just soil—it is a source of income, identity, and security, especially for rural families. Yet, across Africa, women remain at a disadvantage. Despite producing an estimated 70–80% of the continent’s food, they own less than 10% of its farmland. In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Beans for Women’s Empowerment (B4WE) project is working

In the Cumbal Indigenous Reserve, located in the Nariño department in southern Colombia, there is an impressive diversity of cultivated and wild trees and plants, including many neglected and underutilized species. However, this diversity is fragile. In one or more of the villages, certain species and varieties have already disappeared. The Alliance and its partners are developing several strategies

Premalata Behera, a 40-year-old member of Maa Women Self Help Group and resident of the Dalimbapur fishing village, comes from a long line of coastal fishers in Odisha, India. For generations, her community has relied on the dried fish trade as a vital source of income. However, Premalata and her group members faced persistent challenges running their dried fish business.

On October 3, the EAT–Lancet Commission released its latest report on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems in Stockholm, Sweden. Building on the landmark 2019 report, this new assessment expands its scope beyond diets to consider the entire food system, placing justice and equity at the center, while also strengthening the evidence base through advanced modelling of dietary scenarios and

By Dr. T. S. Amjath Babu, Senior Agricultural Economist, CIMMYT; Md. Masud Rana, Project Portfolio Coordinator, CIMMYT; and Dipok K. Choudhury, Research Associate, CIMMYT Dhaka, Bangladesh – The Mitigation Marketplace and Workshop, held on September 30, 2025, at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel, marked a pivotal step in Bangladesh’s journey toward climate-smart agriculture. Jointly organized by the World Bank and

The International Water Management Institute (IWMI), under the CGIAR Scaling for Impact (S4I) Program, hosted a hybrid capacity-building day to strengthen the team’s understanding of scaling science and practices. With colleagues joining both in person and online, the event created an inclusive space for learning, reflection, and collaboration across regions. At its heart, the day echoed S4I’s learning ambition: to

by Zakaria Hasan, CIMMYT  Born in the remote village of Hatash Haripur in Kushtia, Bangladesh, Md. Al-Helal’s early life was defined by hardship. His father, a daily laborer, and his mother, a homemaker, struggled to make ends meet. Forced to leave school at 13, Al-Helal began working at a small engineering workshop for less than 50 cents a week. What