Dryland communities have sustainably and autonomously managed the world’s arid landscapes for centuries, but, today, the combined pressures of climate change, population growth, increasing demand for livestock and, most recently, COVID-19 are accelerating the rate at which they must adapt and innovate to achieve food and livelihoods security. Common challenges facing dryland communities include limited access to knowledge sharing, monitoring and adaptive learning facilities, and a lack of capacity and incentives to connect with global and regional stakeholders.
This white paper introduces the Dryland Sustainable Landscapes Program (DSL-IP), to be launched at GLF Africa 2021: Restoring Africa’s Drylands. The DSL-IP takes a catalytic, country-driven approach to accelerating transformational and durable changes at scale, and will be applied across dryland communities in 11 countries in three geographical clusters to avoid, reduce, and reverse further degradation, desertification, and deforestation of land and ecosystems in drylands. Led by FAO, supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and in partnership with the World Bank, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the DSL-IP will reach close to 1 million direct beneficiaries, and bring 12 million hectares of drylands under sustainable land management, including 1.6 million hectares of protected areas, and 10,000 hectares of high conservation value forests.
This subject is part of GLF Africa: Restoring Africa’s Drylands.