This report builds upon FAO’s work promoting gender mainstreaming in extension and advisory services, cataloguing challenges and suggesting strategies for increasing the gender responsiveness of rural advisory services globally. The purpose of this review is to apply FAO’s accumulated knowledge about gender equality in the context of rural advisory services to assess the situation in the ECA region. The report provides a snapshot of the extent to which gender considerations are currently integrated into RAS in the region and highlights good practices that are in line with FAO’s gender equality strategies. The report concludes with recommendations for FAO, partner organizations and stakeholders in the fields of agricultural extension and rural advisory services, on how to further improve such services to extend their reach to rural women and men who have previously had limited or no access. This process requires moving away from gender‑neutral service provision, which often results in the exclusion of women, towards transformative extension and rural advisory services that challenge unequal gender relations and address underlying discriminatory norms and practices.

In 2022, the Rural Development Administration(RDA) of the Republic of Korea through its Asian Food and Agriculture Cooperation Initiative (AFACI), launched a project “Improvement of Rural Agricultural Technology Extension System in Asia (RATES)” to strengthen extension systems in 12 Asian countries. The Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) is a partner in this initiative and its regional network in Asia, the Asia-Pacific Islands Rural Advisory Services (APIRAS) is supporting the implementation of the RATES project. One of its early activities was to make an assessment of the EAS system in these countries. This brief is based on the assessment of EAS, especially focussing on the role of public EAS in these countries, the challenges they face, and identifying some of the potential ways forward to enhance the contributions of EAS.

Rising temperatures, longer droughts, more severe storms, warming oceans, and recurring floods are already threatening global agriculture and food security. Most smallholder farmers in middle- and lowincome countries have limited abilities to respond and adapt to these climate risks. While highly vulnerable to climate change, agriculture is also a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To strengthen the resilience of agriculture to changing climate, a two-pronged approach that supports adaptation – adjusting to actual or expected future climate change – and promotes mitigation – reducing greenhouse gases or enhancing accumulation and storage of GHG – is needed. Promoting these strategies at scale involves changing the behavior, strategies, and agricultural practices of millions of agricultural producers.