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 study presents some lessons from a selection of IUCN interventions in dryland areas that have adapted to a greater or lesser extent to the conditions of drylands, notably focusing on water management to deal with scarcity and variability. The study is intended as a means of capturing lessons learned …
Three major international agendas concern building resilience to climate change, achieving sustainable development in marginal dryland environments and responding to humanitarian crises. These agendas often compete with each other for support and attention. When crises become acute, sustainable development and the climate change agenda may suffer reversals that will leave …
A new report by the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) reveals the crucial role the world’s drylands play in buffering the negative impacts of climate change, land degradation and drought. Drylands are absolutely key to global food security for the whole planet. Environment friendly and water efficient agriculture …
Prospects for Livestock-Based Livelihoods in Africa’s Drylands examines the challenges and opportunities facing the livestock sector and the people who depend on livestock in the dryland regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. It presents a novel way of thinking about pastoral development, grounded in a conceptual framework that focuses on the multiple …
Dryland regions in Sub-Saharan Africa are home to one-half of the region’s population and three-quarters of its poor. Poor both in natural resources and in assets and income, the inhabitants of drylands are highly vulnerable to droughts and other shocks. Despite a long history of interventions by governments, development agencies, …
More than 200 million people living in dryland regions of Sub-Saharan Africa make their living from agriculture. Most are exposed to weather shocks, especially drought, that can decimate their incomes, destroy their assets, and plunge them into a poverty trap from which it is difficult to emerge. Their lack of …
Social Protection Programs for Africa’s Drylands explores the role of social protection in promoting the well-being and prosperity of people living in dryland regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, with a specific focus on the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. Based on a review of recent experience, it argues that social …
For the first time, this United Nations report details the number of trees, forests and how the land is used in the world’s drylands. The findings could be used to track progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and help fight climate change. Drylands cover about 41 percent of the Earth’s …
Although ecological restoration is widely used to combat environmental degradation, very few studies have evaluated the cost-effectiveness of this approach. We examine the potential impact of forest restoration on the value of multiple ecosystem services across four dryland areas in Latin America, by estimating the net value of ecosystem service …
