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.

This project aims to strengthen capacity of four developing countries to develop and implement integrated forest landscape restoration plans to halt deforestation, tackle its drivers and its intensifying factors, and make progress towards the forest-related SDGs. It also aims to build capacity for developing and implementing policy measures for enhancing mobilization of public and private sector investments into forest landscape restoration. The expected outputs include background situation analysis studies on the status of forests, levels and drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, forest management and forest landscape restoration and other measures to combat deforestation; national experts with capacity to develop and implement integrated forest landscape restoration plans; national policy frameworks and  measures for attracting and harnessing public and private sector investments in forest landscape restoration; and development and dissemination of tool kits and training materials to other additional countries to promote upscaling of these activities beyond the project countries.

As a set of interconnected goals, monitoring and measuring the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals necessitates the use of integrated frameworks. The United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) is an international statistical standard which integrates economic and environmental information into a common framework to measure the contribution of the environment to the economy and the impact of the economy on the environment. The SEEA provides countries with a framework to derive internationally comparable sets of statistics and indicators, supporting measurement of progress towards the SDGs as well as the Aichi Targets, green growth etc.  The project aims to address the technical and institutional barriers to the establishment of routinely produced environmental-economic accounts at the national level by national statistical offices. Project activities will focus on: building the institutional framework in support of SEEA implementation, taking into consideration existing initiatives and activities in the countries and policy priorities; building capacity in the countries to compile selected accounts on a regular basis, while contributing to the development of SEEA compliant global databases; fostering inter-institutional relationships to promote collaboration and data-sharing in producing the accounts; and promoting the effective communication and use of the accounts in supporting evidence-based policy and the SDGs. The project will support up to six developing countries from four different sub-regions—Northern Africa, Eastern Africa, Eastern Asia and Southern Asia—to ensure geographic diversity and multiplication effects in the various regions. Of these six countries, the project will build on initial assistance provided to two countries in Eastern Africa, Kenya and Uganda, during the 9th tranche of the Development Account. Finally, the project will include South-South collaboration fellowships, to allow project countries to visit and learn from each other.