General

Commercial interest and investments in Africa's agricultural lands have intensified in quantity, speed, and size over the past five years, particularly in the wake of the 2008 food crisis. This project will address concerns over the phenomenon. It aims to enhance leadership skills that will help build more equitable policies and practices for communities around large-scale land investments in Africa. Large-scale land acquisitions Foreign and domestic investors, both public and private, are acquiring control of vast stretches of fertile land for agricultural production in developing countries. While agricultural investments can contribute to economic development and reduce poverty, many investments have failed to live up to expectations and are not generating sustainable benefits. In many instances, these land deals are leaving local people worse off than they would have been without the investment. Pressures on agricultural land are expected to continue to meet the needs of growing populations. There is also the issue of diminishing supplies of fertile land caused by pressures on water sources, encroaching urbanization, and changing weather patterns related to climate change. Investments to date have served to highlight existing weaknesses in the management and governance of agricultural lands and on local communities' ability to secure land rights. More accountable, equitable investments This project will advance IDRC's work on this issue in sub-Saharan Africa to make land investment processes more accountable and equitable, and to prevent displacement and conflict. It will build on five action research projects covering 10 countries. Project teams will work with communities to increase their power to negotiate equitable terms and protect their rights and interests. It will fund the following activities: -Land Research Summit in Dakar, Senegal, to share initial research results and lessons learned, as well as foster policy discussions -Blogs and op-eds to raise awareness about research findings -Conference participation to share the research and findings

Objectives

Long term vision, which takes stock of lessons learnt from past initiatives, developed leading to institutional strengthening of the GGWI and mobilization of adequate investments for a resilient and sustainable Sahel.

Other

Note: Disbursement data provided is cumulative and covers disbursement made by the project Agency.

Target Groups

This region does not present only challenges, it has enormous potential opportunities: considerable arable land resources, significant mineral resources (petroleum, natural gas, phosphates, gold, uranium, iron, etc.), immense livestock, marine and freshwater resources. The Saharo-Sahelian area has also significant surface water resources with numerous rivers and lakes (Niger, Gambia and Senegal rivers, Lake Chad, etc.) and the large underground water tables are among the largest aquifers on the continent. The potential for solar energy is huge. The Sahel has a sunshine of about 4300 h per year with the potential to generate more than 2200kWh / m2 / year, clearly above the African average. Biodiversity (avian fauna, mammals, reptiles, insects, etc.) is rich and varied despite the great losses that the region has suffered.It should be noted that efforts to restore land in many countries have led to a regreening of certain areas, mainly due to the practice of assisted natural regeneration.The socio-economic benefits of the project are multiple at various levels: regional, national and local. The project will contribute through greater complementarity and synergy of interventions carried out through other initiatives, in particular LDCF / SCCF. This greater coherence will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the activities with an increased impact for the benefit of the populations. The results will lead to the reinforcement of land restoration capacities and adaptation of populations to climate change. More broadly the project will contribute to the following socioeconomic and environmental medium and long term impacts.· Promote comprehensive land-use planning to better target and scale-up integrated natural resource management, including practices for landscape restoration and increased resilience,· Promote policies to increase tenure security and rights of Local Communities and Indigenous People, including pastoralists for harmonizing land use practices and reduction of conflict between resident and nomadic communities,· Promote policy options to unlock market opportunities and innovative financing for diversified livelihoods of smallholder farmers and pastoralists, and · Promote universal access to renewable energy and local carbon pathways for economic growth and development.

General

The Food Security and Inclusive Access to Resources for Conflict-Sensitive Market Development (FARM) programme will work to improve target population’s access to, control over and utilization of land and improve market systems through increased cooperation between market actors in selected value chains, contributing to food security and stability.

Objectives

The FARM project has worked on two main outcomes: 1. Access to and control over and utilization of land 2. Strengthened market systems and cooperation in value chains (VC). Land tenure security is an important driver of conflict within communities and between communities and large land-owners (concessionaires). Lack of tenure security also reduces investment of farmers in their land and conservation practices. The project has contributed to solve 460 conflicts over land and to increase access to land for 8,700 farmers. The improvement of access to land is mainly through short-term leases with concessionaires. The project was less successful to achieve long-term and sustainable solutions and access to land. Security related issues have an enormous impact on agricultural performance in Eastern DRC. Lack of secure access to land and markets are an hindrance to agricultural development. In order to enhance agricultural and value chain development, a conflict-sensitive approach is required, including addressing security related issues. The activities in component 2 (Markets/VC) led to improved market access and income for market actors (13,885 market actors). The project focused on enhancing collaboration between market actors of different communities, and increasing income Of market actors through pro-poor agricultural value chains and markets. The project did enhance the collaboration between market actors and improved the functioning of some value chains. The sustainability of the results may be limited as the conflict dimension was not fully reflected in the strategy and activities. This may explain that some groups felt not considered sufficiently.

Objectives

Project Objective: Restore and maintain critical ecosystem services of globally significant riverine forest landscapes along the River Nile in Sudan. 50,878 ha of riverine forest ecosystems managed to benefit biodiversity and maintain productive value “Core Indicator 4”. 20,000 private agriculturalists, livestock herders, and forest users (10,000 female/10,000 male) reporting stable or improved standard of living resulting from BD conservation mainstreaming

Other

Note: Disbursement data provided is cumulative and covers disbursement made by the project Agency.

Target Groups

10. Benefits 1. The project will directly benefit approximately 20,000 smallholder farmers, livestock herders, and forest users. As noted, these persons are highly reliant upon riverine ecosystems and associated benefits. Intact riverine forests are invaluable in terms of flood and erosion mitigation. These ecosystems are also critical in terms of provisioning fuelwood and NTFPs. Riverine forests provide habitat for a host of species and important nurseries for fisheries upon which many local residents rely for subsistence and commerce. Importantly, riverine ecosystems offer potential to provide local residents and livelihoods to greater resilience to climate change. 2. The livelihoods of these producers are currently at risk and are further threatened by the sustained trend in deforestation, land degradation, decreasing agriculture and livestock productivity, decreasing water availability, climate change, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services all leading to deteriorating living conditions and wellbeing of local communities. The project will reverse this trend by providing rural smallholders with the opportunities to access knowledge, information, capacity and experience to adopt improved practices. These practices will result in GEBs, but also increased the standards of living, food security, and climate change resiliency of these at-risk rural dwellers. 3. The top priority to re-engineer the social contract between forest managers and communities, according to the respondents to the household survey conducted during the PPG phase, is creating a strong incentive for local communities to be part of the solution towards establishing a co-management approach of the riverine landscape. Doing so entails supporting local communities to generate alternative income streams through the sustainable valorization of biodiversity-based products, with a special focus on women and girls’ empowerment as explained in details in the Gender Action Plan. By improving productive practices and enabling a better valorization of natural resources along local value chains, with increased livelihoods and income, the project is expected to have knock-on impacts in terms of economic development and associated increases in employment opportunity. 4. At the governance level, national benefits will accrue to a variety of agencies. This will include the ability to more efficiently and effectively address deforestation issues. The results of more integrated and collaborative approaches to biodiversity conservation will also increase the cost-effectiveness of current divergent investments in a context of financial scarcity post COVID-19. These investments and associated human resources will be harmonized to directly address degradation and increase synergistic responses. This will include capacity building, limited supply of better equipment, and access to knowledge and capacity based upon best international and regional principles and practices.

General

The Inclusive and Sustainable Development Support Programme for Agricultural Sectors (PADIDFA) is intended to sustain and consolidate the achievements of Green Morocco Plan (PMV), and launch its acceleration phase (2017-2020). It is a EUR 200 million sector budget support operation in two tranches to be executed over the 2018-2019 period to help achieve the objectives of PMV. The programme helps the authorities with the formulation and implementation of inter-sector strategic reforms to strengthen the social and environmental dimensions of the PMV and promote inclusion, sustainability and competitiveness in Morocco’s agricultural sector. Its design is informed by lessons from Phases I and II of PAPMV (cf. 4.4.3), the principles of the Paris Declaration as well as good practice principles for the application of conditionality. PADIDFA supports a series of medium- and short-term strategic reforms to improve the quality of life for the people through quality jobs and self-employment in rural areas, and the protection of such jobs through sustainable natural resource management. It is an important institutional lever for creating synergies between strategies governing agriculture, the environment, water, energy and employment.

Objectives

The programme objective is to help boost agricultural sector competitiveness to ensure inclusive and sustainable economic growth through the promotion of value chains, job creation, improvement of the business climate and sustainable natural resource management. Hence, PADIDFA will help to: (i) support the PMV ecosystem and amplify its impact; (ii) promote the inclusion of vulnerable stakeholders (especially the youth and women); and (iii) build agricultural sector resilience.

Target Groups

PADIDFA will benefit the Moroccan population in general, and the youth and women in the rural areas in particular. It will specifically benefit: (i) local councils; (ii) inter-professional associations and professional organizations; (iii) agricultural VSMEs and organizations (crop sectors, waste management, etc.); (iii) the private sector (training, research, private agricultural councils, etc.); (iv) project proponents and young agricultural and rural entrepreneurs due to improvement of the business environment; and (v) women's associations and rural women (access to value chains, land tenure security, local services, etc.).