Drylands are areas that suffer from high water scarcity, mainly due to limited rainfall and high temperatures, as well as frequent droughts and heatwaves. They are home to about 2 billion people globally and provide half of the world’s livestock and 44 percent of the world’s cultivated systems.
Found on every continent, drylands are under severe pressure from human activities and climate change, with 25–35% now considered as degraded. These damaged lands suffer from reduced agricultural productivity, food and nutrition insecurity, limited economic development, inadequate water management, declining resilience to climate variability, social and political instability, and human migration.
To reverse this worsening crisis, CIFOR-ICRAF have developed a range of innovative solutions that help farmers and counter the effects of severe degradation.
Stories of transformation
Stories of restoration success in East Africa’s drylands: Veronica Ngau
These stories come from farmers, community facilitators, government focal points, and partners who have been engaged in project activities in Kenya.
Tools
Vegetationmap4Africa & Africa tree finder app
The Africa Tree Finder Application offers users a chance to upload data on existing tree plant species in a given community including new tree additions as a result of on going restoration efforts. Currently, the application has informed decisions in Rwanda towards the need for adoption of indigenous plant species within restoration efforts in the country in order to ensure biodiversity.
Regreening Africa app
The Regreening Africa Application acts as monitoring and accountability platform for restoration efforts. The application also aims to decentralize the monitoring and accountability mechanisms of restoration to farmers at grass root levels.
App on Google Play
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icraf.gsl.regreeningafrica&hl=en
Blog on App
A mobile application helps African farmers manage and restore their land
INFOGRAPHIC
Addressing land degradation to achieve food and nutrition security
Land degradation threatens the livelihoods and the food and nutrition security of the poorest, most vulnerable smallholder farmers and pastoralists. As a result, migration is accelerating, with an estimated 60 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa at risk of being displaced by desertification and land degradation by 2050.
VIDEOS
Knowledge
DRYLANDS MAP
