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• Country ownership is one of the four guiding principles for the Immunization Agenda 2030. • There is little practical guidance on what country ownership is and how to operationalize it. • Measles and rubella programs are used to illustrate country ownership in operation. • Five elements of country ownership - commitment, coordination, capacity, community participation, and accountability - are described. • Our work is a useful guide for immunization program strategy development. Country-owned, as opposed to donor-driven, is a principle within the development sector that recognizes the centrality of countries' leadership, systems, and resources in executing programs and achieving sustainable development. In alignment with this notion, the Immunization Agenda 2030 was developed with country ownership as one of four core principles of the ambitious ten-year plan. This means that the success of immunization programs, including those with eradication and elimination goals such as polio, measles, and rubella, and those with broader equity goals to "leave no one behind" on immunization, would be largely driven by country systems. In this paper we deconstruct country ownership into five operational principles: commitment, coordination, capacity, community participation, and accountability. Through this lens, we illustrate how two countries, Nepal and Nigeria, have exemplified country ownership in their measles and rubella elimination programs and we infer the ways in which country ownership drives system performance and sustains program efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and extreme weather events undermine smallholder household food and income security in many rural areas of developing countries. Nature-based solutions and the use of climate resilient and nutrient dense Neglected and Underutilized Species into the local farming system have been claimed to sustainably help farmers adapt to climate change and to manage risk more effectively. This paper investigated the potential implementation of three options based on the collective cultivation and management of olive groves and wild forests for production purposes in a mountain region of Nepal. The analysis was aimed at assessing the potential benefits of such strategy in comparison with the status-quo. The study conducted an ex-ante simulation exercise for evaluating three options: 1) 1500 ha of new and restored wild forests; 2) 500 ha of olive groves; and 3) A combination of option 1 and 2. We calculated the financial, economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of such options using agricultural and economic data collected from representative households identified from a sample of 31 small, 9 medium, and 3 large farm households. To conduct the economic, social and environmental analysis (ESE), we calculated the Social Return on Investment and we integrated it into the economic analysis. Then we compared the results to assess which was the most profitable option. The results of the analysis showed that all three proposed options are stable with an Internal Rate of Return always above 27% with values over 100%. The greatest increase in terms of NPV is observed when shifting from the financial to the ESE analysis in options 1, 2, and 3 (+397.5%, +132.0%, +187.2% respectively) as the benefits increase more than the costs. The results further suggested that the integrated option is the most profitable one also in terms of labour generation. Indeed, we observed a substantial increase in the Return to Labour indicator especially in the ESE analysis (from 1.9 in the financial analysis to 2.8 in the economic analysis to 6.0 in the ESE analysis). This study provides evidence of the potential that similar strategies based on the use of local resources and species, if properly designed, implemented and managed, may have to restore the ecosystem and enhance the livelihoods of local communities. The most innovative element of this study is the proposed ESE analysis, which takes into account the social and environmental dimension besides the economic one. [Display omitted] • Olive growing would be a nature-based solution to sustainably diversify the local production system. • Assessing the benefits of the collective management of wild olive forests and olive orchards in a mountain region of Nepal • Investing in wild and domesticated olive would increase household income and generate labour in Western Nepal. • Investment in olive could have long-term economic, social, and environmental positive effects on smallholders' livelihoods. • The use of local resources and species could improve the resilience and well-being of other local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]