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Showing items 1 through 9 of 11.
  1. Library Resource
    Journal Articles & Books
    December, 2020
    Algeria, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal

    Drylands occupy more than 40% of the world’s land area and are home to some two billion people. This includes a disproportionate number of the world’s poorest people, who live in degraded and severely degraded landscapes. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification states on its website that 12 million hectares are lost annually to desertification and drought, and that more than 1.5 billion people are directly dependent on land that is being degraded, leading to US$42 billion in lost earnings each year.

  2. Library Resource
    Reports & Research
    December, 2020
    Niger, Western Africa

    The West African Sahel is very vulnerable to the effects of climate change, due to land degradation, dependence on rainfed farming, political instability, poor governance, food insecurity, terrorism, poor infrastructure, and limited technical capacity. This has particular impacts on the agricultural sector (Sissoko et al. 2011; Zougmoré et al. 2016).

  3. Library Resource
    Reports & Research
    December, 2020
    Senegal, Western Africa

    Valuable lessons can be learned from smallholder farmers who have successfully protected and regenerated tree cover across agricultural landscapes in Senegal, with minimal reliance on tree nurseries, seedling distribution or tree planting. In the process, they have restored soil fertility to sustainably increase agricultural production.

  4. Library Resource
    Reports & Research
    December, 2020
    Senegal, Western Africa

    In the above initiatives, self-motivated populations increased food security and reduced vulnerabilities to climatic shocks by restoring and sustainably managing local forest resources. To regenerate agroforestry parklands, farmers built on traditional systems to increase on-farm tree density and convert degraded lands to densely wooded savannas. These actions increased crop yields and produced new sources of livestock browse. The population of Sambandé restored the local forest and managed it to sustainably produce fuel and fruit.

  5. Library Resource
    Reports & Research
    December, 2020
    Niger, Western Africa

    Unless countries can manage to mobilize millions of land users to invest their scarce resources in protecting regenerating trees, the battle against land degradation cannot be won. These experiences from Niger show that hundreds of thousands of smallholder farm families have substantially increased tree cover on their farm land by investing in the management of on-farm trees. This has improved their production systems and their livelihoods. There is no reason to believe that similar success cannot be achieved in many more countries throughout African drylands and sub-humid area.

  6. Library Resource
    Reports & Research
    December, 2020
    Senegal, Western Africa

    The climate-smart village approach created enthusiasm and commitment from farmers in seeking solutions to the problems and constraints that they themselves identified. The approach also involved strengthening the capacity of technical staff to use new tools, and to understand and support the new methods, with complementary finance to support the changes.

  7. Library Resource
    Reports & Research
    December, 2020
    Niger, Western Africa

    When the IFAD-funded project started in 1988, few people could have imagined that 15 years later the degraded plateaus would be covered with trees on land restored to production by individual smallholder farmers. And no one imagined that a village on a barren degraded plateau would one day produce enough vegetables to meet its own needs and produce a surplus for sale, because water levels in the wells had risen so much.

  8. Library Resource
    Reports & Research
    December, 2020
    Niger, Western Africa

    Key success factors
    There were several reasons for the success of the restoration initiative.
    • Implementation had the active participation of the local community; i.e., it was community- led restoration.
    • Restoration produced short- and long-term economic and environmental benefits.
    • It systematically included women, girls and youth in restoration activities.
    • The former village leader had the leadership capacity to mobilize the local community.

  9. Library Resource
    Reports & Research
    December, 2020
    Burkina Faso, Western Africa

    Since the mid-1980s, the positive impacts of these simple, cost-efficient water harvesting techniques become clear, following their increasingly widespread adoption. Their use has allowed smallholders to reverse land degradation, improve soil fertility, sustainably increase crop production, achieve food security, and create more productive, diverse and resilient farming systems. At the same time, groundwater is recharged, improving access to drinking water for the entire year, and creating opportunities for irrigated vegetable gardening around wells.

  10. Library Resource
    Reports & Research
    December, 2020
    Kenya, Western Africa

    As a farmer in northern Kenya, I came to understand the importance of dryland restoration. After moving to Kaijaido country in the south, I started an initiative to restore the land, increase food security and reduce poverty, supported by a grant from the East African Community with various activities supported by FAO and Yale University.

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