When the IFAD-funded project started in 1988, few people could have imagined that 15 years later the degraded plateaus would be covered with trees on land restored to production by individual smallholder farmers. And no one imagined that a village on a barren degraded plateau would one day produce enough vegetables to meet its own needs and produce a surplus for sale, because water levels in the wells had risen so much.

Key success factors
There were several reasons for the success of the restoration initiative.
• Implementation had the active participation of the local community; i.e., it was community- led restoration.
• Restoration produced short- and long-term economic and environmental benefits.
• It systematically included women, girls and youth in restoration activities.
• The former village leader had the leadership capacity to mobilize the local community.

Since the mid-1980s, the positive impacts of these simple, cost-efficient water harvesting techniques become clear, following their increasingly widespread adoption. Their use has allowed smallholders to reverse land degradation, improve soil fertility, sustainably increase crop production, achieve food security, and create more productive, diverse and resilient farming systems. At the same time, groundwater is recharged, improving access to drinking water for the entire year, and creating opportunities for irrigated vegetable gardening around wells.

As a farmer in northern Kenya, I came to understand the importance of dryland restoration. After moving to Kaijaido country in the south, I started an initiative to restore the land, increase food security and reduce poverty, supported by a grant from the East African Community with various activities supported by FAO and Yale University.

The adoption of FMNR increased by 50% over 20 years; about 90% of all farmers now encourage natural regeneration on the land that they manage. The key to success is having local institutions that are respected and effective. The experience in Bankass shows that reforestation rates of at least 250 trees per hectare can be achieved by farmer managed natural regeneration on Sahelian agricultural lands, recreating an agroforestry parkland at a fraction of the cost of establishing conventional plantations.

The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets presents commodity market issues in an objective and accessible way to policy-makers, commodity market observers and stakeholders interested in agricultural commodity market developments and their impacts on countries at different levels of economic development.

Food security in Africa needs abundant, affordable and nutritious food for the growing population.
•Smallholder farmers lack sufficient land or economic incentives to invest in agriculture.
•The above issues create a ‘wicked problem’ – a conundrum for future food security.

This playbook details 23 behavior change strategies to help food service companies support diners in choosing more sustainable, plant-rich dishes when shopping or dining out – action that’s important for meeting global emissions goals and achieving the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Investments that reduce food loss and waste can deliver big wins on two pressing issues of our time: food security and environmental sustainability, according to a new World Bank report. But the results are not automatic -- countries need well-targeted solutions.

The paper critically engages with sustainable development goal targets (SDG-2- Target 2.3; SDG-5) to examine how and why large-scale agricultural land acquisitions modify the social relations of women’s food access. The study draws from impacts of various plantation schemes in Cameroon and Ghana. It argues that the framing of the SDG-2 appears to co-exist alongside promotion of corporate-led agricultural investment.

Le Cameroun s’est engagé dans un processus de réforme juridique dans les principaux secteurs des ressources naturelles (forêts, mines, terres). Exprimant la position d’un groupe d’organisations et de citoyens intéressés par la gestion de la terre au Cameroun, ce document s’appuie sur les leçons apprises de quarante-cinq années de gestion foncière, depuis la dernière grande réforme de 1974, et sur les développements nouveaux dans ce domaine. Il est inspiré des propositions formulées par la société civile à l’attention de l’administration foncière, et de textes internationaux.

This publication supports processes related to rural communities’ resilience in implementing land restoration of the Great Green Wall Programme on the ground. It serves a dual purpose of consolidating biophysical operations and socio-economic assessments, and is mainly built on five-year interventions and practical experiences gathered through Action Against Desertification. The first part of the publication is a practical manual expressly created for stakeholders, partners, non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations.