This policy brief aims to draw attention to the lessons pastoral systems offer in the face of climate change. Exploring the key factors enabling and hampering the resilience of pastoral systems to climate change, it indicates how the challenge of sustainable and resilient food systems could be tackled under increasingly …
This policy brief aims to draw attention to the lessons pastoral systems offer in the face of climate change. Exploring the key factors enabling and hampering the resilience of pastoral systems to climate change, it indicates how the challenge of sustainable and resilient food systems could be tackled under increasingly …
Rapidly expanding cities in very dry parts of the world must be turned into "green urban oases" to ensure they become both healthier places to live in and more resilient to climate change, according to this new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Rapidly …
The Rangelands Atlas has been developed to document and raise awareness on the enormous environmental, economic and social value of rangelands as well as their different ecosystems. It highlights many of the changes taking place in rangelands due to climate change, land use and conversion trends, investments and other changes. …
With climate change impacts already felt in the world’s drylands, there is an urgent need for action, at various scales and initiated by different stakeholders, to ensure the sustainability of food production and livelihoods in these regions in the coming decades. There is also the need to rapidly establish baselines, …
This report responds to heightened concerns over rising levels of farmer-herder conflict across a wide band of semi-arid Africa. Assess the quantitative evidence behind this general impression and review the explanations in the scientific literature, in the light of known issues with long-standing attitudes towards pastoralism and mobile populations. Looking …
Two decades ago, legal provisions gave local institutions rights to manage natural resources in four dryland African countries: Mali, Niger, Sudan and Ethiopia. This report examines how resilient such decentralised institutions have been, under the rapidly changing circumstances of the past two decades, and notes common lessons learned. These include: …
Drylands cover 41% of Earth’s surface and are the largest source of interannual variability in the global carbon sink. Drylands are projected to experience accelerated expansion over the next century, but the implications of this expansion on variability in gross primary production (GPP) remain elusive. Original Source
About 80% of forests in Ethiopia are dry forest. For the last 20 years they have been subject to land use changes, and replaced by agricultural land and settlements. This situation may be due to the little recognition, at the national level, of the actual and potential contribution of dry …
Pastoral livestock production is crucial to the livelihoods and the economy of Africa’s drylands. It developed 7 000 years ago in response to long‑term climate change. It spread throughout Northern Africa as an adaptation to the rapidly changing and increasingly unpredictable arid climate. It is practised in an area representing …
Alongside the global temperature goals of limiting global average warming to well below 2°C, and to make concerted efforts to limit warming to below 1.5°C, the Paris Agreement aims to collectively enhance adaptation, build resilience to climate change, promote low carbon development and ensure that finance flows are provided to …
This handbook provides practical guidance for planning and implementing community-led ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) in three vulnerable ecosystems: mountains, drylands and coastal areas. It is intended for project managers, practitioners and technical specialists. The guidance is structured around eight key steps in the project cycle, and includes general implementation protocols for …
‘Leave no one behind’ is a principle central to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This policy briefing, based on five years’ research by the PRISE project, puts forward the view that governments, development partners and investors must prioritise investments to tackle poverty and climate vulnerability in dryland areas …
Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of an overall strategy to help people to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change and promote sustainable development. This report presents the results of using our Framework for Assessing EbA Effectiveness at the Climate Resilient …
Soil biodiversity and soil organic carbon are vital to the way ecosystems function and they largely determine the role of land in producing food, storing water, and mitigating climate change. This report highlights how soil organic carbon and soil biodiversity provide the foundation for terrestrial ecosystem services. Restoring or preserving …
Drylands account for three-quarters of Sub-Saharan Africa's cropland, two-thirds of cereal production, and four-fifths of livestock holdings. Today frequent and severe shocks, especially droughts, limit the livelihood opportunities available to millions of households and undermine efforts to eradicate poverty in the drylands. Prospects for sustainable development of drylands are assessed …
This policy briefing focuses on the impact of climate change on livelihoods, development and vulnerability in Kachchh, India. The semi-arid district of Kachchh in Gujarat is known for its erratic rainfall, water scarcity, and droughts. Climate change has intensified extreme temperature and rainfall patterns and also led to changes to …
Climate change is putting increasing stress on the livelihoods of people living in the world’s drylands. Smallholder irrigation has long been seen as a means of improving food security in areas with unpredictable rainfall, and is now being promoted as part of climate change adaptation strategies. The Ruti Irrigation Scheme …
A new United Nations report warns that a third of the planet’s land is now severely degraded thanks to a doubling in the consumption of natural resources over the past 30 years. Some 15 billion trees and 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil are lost each year, according to the …
The World Bank’s goals are to eradicate extreme poverty, and boost shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. On the African continent, poverty reduction, economic development, and sustainability are deeply intertwined and dependent on the management of natural resources, such as land, water, forest, aquatic resources, and biodiversity, which provide the …
Climate change will have significant impacts on economic activity and value chains in Uganda. But it can also provide new possibilities for people and businesses – for example, to create new products and services, develop new markets and access new funding streams and finance mechanisms. The semi-arid Karamoja region in …
