Despite progress in reducing both the number of undernourished persons and the prevalence of undernourishment in recent decades, people living in rural areas have been left behind, with many continuing to face grinding poverty and hunger. In particular, smallholder farmers in remote and mountainous areas, drought and desertification- affected regions and small island developing states encounter constant challenges for growing crops, putting them at risk of poverty and hunger. The socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has further compounded these challenges, adding urgency to the call to galvanize action and delivery of the SDGs and the eradication of poverty and hunger, particularly in rural areas. Inadequate land use patterns and lack of sufficient arable land, land degradation, and desertification compound the perennial problems of poverty and hunger in many developing countries. Juncao technology that the National Engineering Research Centre of the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University of China has developed, has allowed smallholder farmers to grow nutritious mushrooms from dried, chopped grasses, without cutting down trees and damaging the environment. This environmental-friendly technology can help small-scale farmers and farming communities to develop a low-cost, commercial-scale mushroom cultivation industry that can provide sustainable livelihood options for family farmers and rural entrepreneurs along agri-food value chains. In addition, the technology can also be used for producing cattle feed, methane gas as a renewable source of energy and minimize soil erosion. The key beneficiaries of the project will be small-holder farmers, people living in poverty, women and youth, rural entrepreneurs along agri-food value chains, agriculture experts, and policymakers from relevant line ministries and government agencies, in particular in the ministries/agencies of agriculture, forestry, and of planning and economic development and  other stakeholders who would be equipped with the technology. Research scientists in the participating project countries will also benefit from the project as they will be able to enhance their knowledge and understanding of all aspects of the technology through study tours and online classes. Through south-south cooperation, this project aims to enhance knowledge and strengthen national capacities of developing countries to improve their policies and programmes supporting sustainable agriculture through the transfer of Juncao technology, contributing to getting back on track and accelerating global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, the project will address rural poverty and hunger, decent job deficits and inequality as key levers to getting back on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The project will also advance efforts from development partners such as the Initiative on Partnership for Africa’s Development that was jointly launched by the People’s Republic of China and African Union on 28 May 2021. The Initiative aims at garnering more support for Africa’s post-pandemic recovery and development by increasing international support to Africa in such areas as response to COVID-19 , post-COVID reconstruction, sustainable development, agriculture, agro-industry, environmental protection, and scientific and technical cooperation. The main stakeholders that will be involved in the implementation of the project will include DESA/DSDG, as the lead implementing entity, and the National Engineering Research Centre for Juncao Technology of the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University of China. Partners such as the AUDA-NEPAD Agency will also be engaged to implement the project in Africa. The expected results of the project are (1) enhance agricultural productivity and added value of agricultural products by building the knowledge and capacities of smallholder farmers’ and agricultural researchers to adopt Juncao technology in the project countries; (2) enhanced capacities of smallholder farmers, agricultural researchers and entrepreneurs along agri-food value chains in the products and use of Juncao technology; (3) foster the creation of decent work in rural areas and related off-farm activities, especially for women and young people; (4) enhanced capacities of policymakers in relevant ministries to implement the transfer of Juncao technology through South-South cooperation, including through exchanging experiences, best practices and expertise, and to formulate specific policy changes, including extension systems that provide quality services to smallholder farmers and services to enhance business, marketing and entrepreneurial skills for agricultural products from small-scale producers, focusing particularly on women and youth, who tend to have less access to these resources; and (5) the establishment of a network of practitioners from the project countries who would continue to support one another with continued implementation of the technology after the life of this project.

Today more than half of the world’s population has no access to social protection at all. In Lao PDR and Tajikistan exclusion is even larger with, respectively, 87.9 and 73.4 percent of the population with no income security in cases of old age, maternity, unemployment and other life cycle and socioeconomic risks.  Poor governance, lack of integrated policy responses, and insufficient and unsustainable financing of social protection are key issues for a number of countries including Lao PDR and Tajikistan in their efforts to extending the coverage of social protection to all. There is a growing need for awareness raising at the global and national levels as well as for the sharing of knowledge and good practices, and the development of practical guidance for the strengthened governance and digitalization of social security systems, identified as a key accelerator enabling to leapfrog some of the bottlenecks to close the social protection coverage gap. The main objective of the project is thus to accelerate and extend universal social protection through the strengthening of the policy design, administrative governance and the digital transformation of social protection systems in Lao PDR and Tajikistan, and promote lessons learned to benefit other countries in the Global South. The project will pursue a two-fold strategy. In two focus countries, Lao PDR, and Tajikistan, technical support will be provided through the ILO country offices to strengthen governance, social security administration and services, and technical capacities of institutions and practitioners, including through the promotion of connectivity and digitalization. In parallel, the project will develop a knowledge base of good practices as well as hands-on training modules including on digital transformation of social protection planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluation. These knowledge products will be useful for all countries and disseminated widely through UNRC network, DESA and ILO websites, seminars/workshops and training sessions including as part of the course offer of the ILO International Training Centre in Turin.

The project aims at enhancing the capacity of the target groups in the following selected countries in Africa: Angola, Namibia, Uganda and Zimbabwe to engage in constructive policy dialogues and/or participatory mechanisms, with a view to develop strategies and initiatives to advance inclusive development and SDG achievement for indigenous peoples in the framework of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Through capacity building of both national and local governments and indigenous leaders, the project aims to promote the participation of indigenous peoples in decision-making processes at all levels, with a special focus at the local level, where the most vulnerable indigenous peoples live. The project also intends to enhance the capacity of governments to develop and implement policies, programmes and legislation that recognize and respect indigenous peoples’ development priorities and rights, that include their full and effective participation in national socio-economic development policies, enhancing dialogue mechanisms among indigenous peoples, the government and UNCTs. The project also aims to strengthen the capacities of stakeholders in targeted countries to engage in those processes, as well as to work in the implementation of national action plans, policies and measures on the Declaration.

The Data For Now initiative (Data4Now) aims to develop countries’ capacities to deliver the information needed by local and national policy and decision makers to achieve the 2030 Agenda and make a positive difference in people’s lives.  To this end, it supports members of the national statistical systems in participating countries to collaborate more effectively with local, national and global partners from intergovernmental organizations, academia, civil society and the private sector, in order to leverage innovative sources, technologies and methods for the streamlined production and dissemination of better, more timely and disaggregated data for sustainable development. The initiative, which was launched by UN Deputy-Secretary General Amina Mohammed on 25 September 2019 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, seeks to enhance collaboration and promote synergies across increasingly complex data systems, supporting the mainstreaming of data innovations into official statistical production processes, including geospatial information, big data and other non-traditional data sources.  It is co-led by a core team consisting of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD), and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). A set of eight trailblazer countries from 3 continents have already joined the initiative, namely: Bangladesh, Nepal, Mongolia, Paraguay, Colombia, Ghana, Rwanda and Senegal. Data4Now is about accelerating the sustainable use of robust new methods and innovative tools that improve the timeliness, coverage, and quality of SDG data through collaboration, partnerships and capacity development. It draws closely from the learnings of previous and ongoing work carried out by UNSD, the World Bank, GPSDD, and SDSN, and has been designed with inputs from government, civil society, academic and private sector partners.  An inception workshop of the Data4Now initiative was hosted by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, in Kigali, Rwanda, on 13-14 November 2019. In this inception workshop, funded jointly by the four core partners, representatives from national statistical systems in the eight trailblazer countries, as well as partners from the private sector, academia and international identified priority needs and deliverables, and explored possible partnerships and solutions around data, technology and methods with highest potential impact to attain those deliverables. Building on the outcome of the inception workshop, the UNSD, in close coordination with other Data4Now core partners, has developed a plan of action to build the capacity of Colombia and Senegal, two Data4Now trailblazer countries that are also priority target countries for the Italian development cooperation. This  plan of action foresees specific activities to support the collection, analysis and use of accurate, inclusive and up-to-date data for the SDGs on two priority themes identified by their respective national statistical system authorities, namely (1) measurement of poverty indicators among difficult-to-reach population groups, and (2) production of disaggregated and timely crop-yield estimates.