Since the reform and opening-up in 1978, China’s income distribution gap has widened. The Gini coefficient of national residents’ income rose from 0.31 in 1981 to a historic high of 0.49 in 2008 and has continued to hover at a high of 0.46 in the recent years (Molero-Simarro, 2017; Li and Zhu, 2018; Luo et al., 2021). Narrowing the income gap between urban and rural residents is the key to reducing China’s Gini coefficient. The ratio of per capita income between urban and rural residents exhibited an overall growth trend before 2009, despite the increase in disposable income per capita of rural residents from 134 yuan in 1978 to 18,931 yuan in 2021. In 2007, the urban–rural income ratio exceeded 3:1 for the first time and contributed over 50% to the Gini coefficient of the national income distribution (Li and Wan, 2013). Since 2009, the urban–rural income gap has decreased; however, the decline has nearly halted post 2014. In 2021, the urban–rural income ratio was still as high as 2.5:1, almost equal to that in 1978 and larger than that in developed countries, which have a level of approximately 1:1 or lower. | Non-PR | 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; DCA; IFPRI4 | DSGD

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has caused a global public health crisis. It has also severely damaged the world’s agrifood systems. Before the pandemic, agrifood systems were already vulnerable to many threats, including climate change, frequent extreme weather events, degradation of natural resources, economic slowdown, and regional conflicts (Fan, Wei, and Zhang 2020; Chen et al. 2020). The number of undernourished people worldwide had been increasing for five consecutive years to 690 million in 2019. More than 135 million people in 55 countries and territories were facing acute hunger, 144 million children younger than five were stunted, and 47 million children were wasted (FSIN 2020; FAO et al. 2020). The pandemic has increased poverty for the first time in 22 years—about 100 million more people have fallen into extreme poverty (FAO 2021b). Moreover, an additional 130 million people are threatened by acute severe food insecurity during the pandemic (WFP 2020a). A recent study has shown that the total number of children affected by stunting could increase by 2.8 million because of the pandemic (World Bank 2021). At the same time, the number of children experiencing wasting could increase by 6.7 million (UNICEF 2020; WFP 2020b). The livelihoods of vulnerable groups such as smallholder farmers, women, and migrant workers are threatened as they face losing jobs and incomes (FAO 2021b). Without effective measures, 840 million people in the world could face undernourishment and suffer from hunger by 2030, far from the “zero hunger” of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (IFPRI 2021b). As vaccines are gradually deployed globally, the pandemic is expected to be under control to some extent by the end of 2021. But we should not simply recover from the crisis; it is time to rethink how to build back better to achieve green, low-carbon, healthier, inclusive, and more resilient food systems. | Non-PR | IFPRI4; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; DCA | DSGD

The present study analyses the income, saving and saving gap among agricultural households (HHs) to understand their investment behaviour, using the data obtained from the NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (NAFIS) 2016-17, which was conducted by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). The NAFIS had the crop year 2015-16 (kharif and rabi seasons) as the reference year. It covered more than 40,000 households, of which 55% were agricultural HHs and the remaining were non-agricultural HHs. The sample was drawn from all the states, and covered farmers with different size of land holdings. Direct enquiries were made about HHs income, expenditure on food and non-food items including farm inputs, amount deposited in bank and invested in financial and physical assets, outreach of institutional credit, financial inclusion and so on.

In this technical guide we describe the Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (SAKSS) concept developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute in response to the capacity gaps typically found in many African countries for generating and translating evidence into action. SAKSS is defined as a collaborative network that acts as a mechanism by which relevant evidence is generated and used to inform agricultural and rural development strategy formulation and implementation. SAKSS brings together two important concepts—“strategic analysis” and “knowledge support systems.” The strategic analysis component describes an integrated framework of analysis that helps identify strategy and investment options for achieving high-end development goals. This analysis is carried out within the context of a knowledge support system, a network that serves the evidence needs of strategy formulation and implementation. By providing a platform for exchange, information, data analysis, and knowledge can be compiled, synthesized, and packaged into evidence that is supplied on a timely and reliable basis to be of use during strategy processes.