Cooperation agreement signed on the implementation of Action Against Desertification
Addis Ababa – In an agreement signed today, the African Union Commission (AUC) and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have further strengthened their partnership in support of the Great Green Wall initiative, Africa’s flagship initiative to combat land degradation, desertification and drought. According to the agreement, FAO will support the AUC through a special hub that will provide assistance in coordination, monitoring and evaluation, capacity development, resource mobilization, knowledge management for the implementation of Action against Desertification, a new project in support of the Great Green Wall initiative. “Ever since African Heads of State and Government endorsed the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative in 2007, FAO has been at the forefront of the fight against desertification,” said Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, the AUC Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture. Patrick Kormawa, FAO’s Subregional Coordinator for Eastern Africa and Representative to AUC, said: “The African Union’s leadership has enabled this formidable alliance to which we have set out to contribute with an ambitious agenda of large scale restoration and sustainable land management across the Sahel and Sahara.”
Expanding Africa’s Great Green Wall
Action Against Desertification is an initiative of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) to promote sustainable land management and restore drylands and degraded lands in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, implemented by FAO and partners with funding from the European Union in the framework of the 10th European Development Fund (EDF). The project builds on the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative, in which more than 20 African countries, international organizations, research institutes, civil society and grassroots organizations have come together to tackle the detrimental social, economic and environmental impact of land degradation and desertification. With a total budget of € 41 million, ACP, the EU, FAO and partners such as the African Union Commission, the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Walloon region are supporting six African countries – Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal – as well as Fiji and Haiti in improving the state and health of production landscapes affected by desertification and land degradation.
Plans for large-scale restoration efforts in West Africa are currently being drawn up by restoration experts from several African countries, using plant-base solutions to increase land productivity, food security, to support livelihoods and income generation for communities and importantly to help mitigate and adapt to future environmental shocks and climate change. Central to these plans is the restoration approach, which puts communities at the heart of restoration efforts and starts with consulting the communities in order to identify their needs for useful plant species and preferences for restoration in support of their livelihoods. Scaling up this approach is core to the Great Green Wall vision of building on best practices, which in the case of restoration has already been rolled-out in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, where 120 communities have used over two million seeds and seedlings of fifty native species to restore over 2500 hectares of land benefitting some 50 000 people. See also: FAO Regional Office for Africa
Call to Action on Dryland Forests: Mobilising Partnerships and Support Through a Dedicated Accelerator
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Dryland forests and agrosilvopastoral systems sustain the livelihoods, food security, and resilience of over two billion people, while delivering vital services for biodiversity, climate adaptation, land restoration, and sustainable food systems. Yet their contributions remain overlooked, and investment in their sustainable management and restoration falls critically short. The Call to Action on Dryland Forests sets out a shared agenda to bridge this gap.
Twelve misconceptions about agrosilvopastoral systems – and how to overcome them
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Agrosilvopastoral systems can contribute to food security, resilient livelihoods, biodiversity, climate adaptation and sustainable land management. Yet they are often reduced to simplified practice, such as grazing under trees or adding trees to livestock and farming landscapes; this brochure examines 12 common misconceptions about agrosilvopastoral systems and explains how evidence, policy and practice can overcome them
Advancing women’s leadership in dryland regions through the three Rs: rights, representation and resources
30/10/2024
This WeCaN Nurturing Community of Knowledge Practice for Women policy brief focuses on advancing women’s leadership in dryland regions through the three Rs: rights, representation and reers across many dryland areas, showcasing the benefits of strong women leadership on environments and communities
Applying MEV-CAM tools: participatory video
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The Making Every Voice Count for Adaptive Management (MEV-CAM) toolkit provides process documentation facilitators with instruments for documenting change through participatory video to generate knowledge, monitor impact, and share practices.
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Gabion baskets: A simple solution to a big problem
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This best practice, focusing on gabion baskets, comes from local communities in Malawi and provides a guide to the use of gabion baskets to improve landscape resilience.
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This good practice, focusing on farmer managed natural regeneration, comes from local communities in Uganda and provides a guide to restoring local ecosystems through natural planting methods.
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Regenerative grazing for climate, ecosystem, and human health
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Grazing with trees – A silvopastoral approach to managing and restoring drylands with trees: Policy brief
30/11/2022
The Grazing with trees policy brief accompanies the Grazing with Trees publication, giving an overview of the positive role that optimized extensive grazing livestock farming can play in the management and restoration of drylands’ forests and lands. Trees in dryland forests and wooded areas provide key ecosystem services such as animal feed, timber, fruits and, regulation of soil and water cycles.
A turning point for drought management: upscaling the silvopastoral approach
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This white paper provides useful background for the GLF Climate Digital Conference: A turning point for drought management: Upscaling the silvopastoral approach in the Near East North Africa (NENA) region….
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Doing no harm while doing good – Climate and conflict sensitivity in dryland humanitarian projects. Policy brief
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The Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus recognizes conflict as a threat multiplier to climate change and seeks to integrate conflict sensitivity into policies and actions around natural releads to conflict between host communities and displaced people
Valuing, restoring and managing “presumed drylands”: Cerrado, Miombo–Mopane woodlands and the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau
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Deploying a humanitarian-development-peace nexus approach: Exploring, strengthening and reviving dryland ecosystems
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Building climate-resilient dryland forests and agrosilvopastoral production systems:
An approach for context-dependent economic, social and environmentally sustainable transformations
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Trees, forests and land use in drylands – The first global assessment. Full reposrt
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Drylands cover 41 percent of the Earth’s land surface. This publication presents the results of the first global assessment of trees, forests and land use in these lands. The assessment…
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Organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with the Government of Mongolia | Partners: Government of Botswana, Kazakhstan, Kenya and Malawi, Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
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Co-organized with the Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO), the Global Flagship Initiative for Food Security and the Billion Tree Fund
Fritjof Boerstler highlighted FAO’s experience through the GEF-7 Dryland Sustainable Landscapes Impact Program (DSL-IP), stressing that many effective approaches for sustainable forest management, agrosilvopastoral systems, restoration and gree…
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Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), Hybrid Event, 20/08/2026
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Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), 16/08/2026
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The Global Dialogue brought together around 50 participants from countries, science, practice, pastoralist and Indigenous Peoples organizations, and partner institutions in a highly interactive workshop. Participants exchanged successful approaches, identified barriers to scaling, and developed prior…
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Sustainable Woodfuel Forum 2026
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1st Drylands Summer School
Amman (Jordan), 12/09/2023 – 15/09/2023
The FAO Committee of
Forestry Working Group on Dryland Forests and Agrosilvopastoral Systems
launched of its first summer school, which will train champions on a
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planning and work.
2nd Drylands Summer School
Nairobi (Kenya), 12/09/2024 – 15/09/2024
The FAO Committee on Forestry Working Group on Dryland Forests and
Agrosilvopastoral Systems (COFO WG) is working to build resilient
drylands by training experts to create a shared vision and to advocate
for transformative dryland policymaking and management. The Drylands
School program represents the forefront of this effort through the
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3rd Drylands Summer School
Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), 06/07/2025 – 10/07/2025
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building on the experience of Mongolia, the International Year of
Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026, the Sustainable Forest Management
Drylands Sustainable Landscapes Impact Programme and other neighbouring…
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Third Session of the COFO Working Group on Dryland Forests and Agrosilvopastoral Systems
Jordan (Jordan), Hybrid Event, 10/09/2023 – 13/09/2023
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Kingdom of Jordan from 10–13 September 2023. It will take place in
parallel with the 26th Session of the Near East Forestry and Rang…
FTN Webinar: MEV-CAM – an innovative method of upscaling change
14/12/2022
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Tanzania (Tanzania), 17/11/2021 – 18/11/2021
The Second
Session of the COFO WG on Dryland Forests and Agrosilvopastoral Systems
provided a platform for members and observers to draw a strategic
workplan for the new biennium (2022-2024). Officially hosted by
Tanzania, this Session was held in a virtual capacity due to the current
global challe…
Inaugural Session of the COFO Working Group on Dryland Forests and Agrosilvopastoral Systems
Rome (Italy), 16/07/2019 – 17/07/2019
Dryland forests and agrosilvopastoral systems, when
well managed, contribute to the food security, livelihoods and
resilience of millions of people as well as to sustainable landscapes.
To understand and tackle the problems behind the loss and degradation of
agrosilvopastoral systems and dryland forests in drylands, and to
better support these systems, FAO was asked to set up a
