Ambitious $104 million program targets land degradation in Africa and Central Asian countries
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The global launch of a $104 million initiative signals an ambitious effort by a range of partners to safeguard drylands in the context of climate change, fragile ecosystems, biodiversity loss, and deforestation in 11 African and Central Asian countries.
Funded by the Global Environment Facility and led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Sustainable Forest Management Impact Program on Dryland Sustainable Landscapes helps pave the way for initiatives linked to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The Program will be implemented in partnership with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the World Bank, and the World Wildlife Fund.
Awakening Africa’s underground forests
A student researching trees at the forest reserve near the village of Masako, in Kisangani, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Copyright: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). This image has been cropped.
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Wednesday, 26 May 2021, 6:01 am
Find out at GLF Africa, 2–3 June
2021
BONN, Germany (25 May 2021) –
Almost half of Africa’s landscape is made up of drylands,
which are areas that suffer from high water scarcity and are
especially vulnerable to land degradation. Africa’s
drylands are home to over 500 million people, who depend
primarily on rain-fed agriculture and livestock husbandry
for their livelihoods.
Yet these livelihoods now face
three interconnected threats: climate change, armed
conflict, and the economic fallout from the COVID-19
pandemic.
Over 1.3
million people face starvation in Madagascar, while 29
million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in
the Sahel – and this may be just the tip of the iceberg.