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| Climate Change and Sustainable Land Management |
 TerrAfrica and climate change
by Seth Shames sshames@ecoagriculture.org / Sara J. Scherr sscherr@ecoagriculture.org ,Ecoagriculture Partners
The TerrAfrica partnership recognises the importance of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) in mitigation of climate change effects. In recognition of this role, the TerrAfrica partnership launched the Country Flagship Programme for Climate Change, Land and Water in order to address climate change issues. This investment programme focuses on scaling up country-level, land-based climate adaptation and mitigation activities, through its focal areas: conservation agriculture, watershed management and energy poverty. The programme includes two sets of activities. The first one is the country flagship investments which will build on existing country-driven SLM operations in the TerrAfrica joint work program. The second, on country coalitions and knowledge sharing, seeks to deepen and disseminate knowledge on land and climate issues, strengthen country level planning, integrate climate risk into public land use policy and support country level capacity to implement climate investment programs. The country TerrAfrica flagship programme provides opportunity for both countries and development partners to invest in a climate change programme that directly benefits the local communities. For more information, please refer to the TerrAfrica-supported NEPAD country flagship programme for climate change .
 Coping with climate change: Understanding local communities' knowledge and their coping strategies to climate change.
By David Kuria, Kijabe Environment Volunteers, Kenya davekenvo@hotmail.com
Climate change has lately dominated the global agenda. It is seen as one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the human race in the modern developmental history. Many approaches have been recommended to address and deal with the impacts of climate change. Most of these approaches recognize the importance of favorable structures and policies for the climate change projects and programs to be successful.
It is widely accepted that local communities are highly impacted by climate change despite their enormous knowledge on their environment. Many studies are therefore questioning whether these communities are adequately involved in planning and policy formulation. A case study of Kereita forest in Kenya that was conducted to assess the level of community understanding on climate change and their coping strategies revealed some interesting aspects.
The community at Kereita forest seemed to be knowledgeable about climate as demonstrated by their ability to identify various causes, indicators and effects of climate change. Most of the respondents seem to have acquired knowledge about climate change through observation and experiences, and from local Community Based Organisations (CBOs). Further, the communities employ a number of strategies to cope with climate change. These included diversification of crops, adoption of better farming methods, growing of fast growing crops, water harvesting and irrigation. Traditional coping mechanism are still in use but not as high as in the past. These results reveal the need to take cognizance of the local and traditional knowledge in the design of any climate change policy. |
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| Snippets from COP15 |
Advanced efforts to integrate SLM and agriculture in the global climate change agenda at COP 15
The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen significantly advanced efforts to integrate agriculture and sustainable lad management (SLM) into the global climate change agenda. Conceptual and political linkages between agricultural mitigation, adaptation and food security were solidified, and governments made substantial commitments to moving agriculture/climate change work forward.
Agriculture and SLM: Despite the UNFCCC negotiations' well-documented difficulties, and the fact that the brief Copenhagen Accord does not mention agriculture explicitly, the two weeks of discussions improved agriculture's relative position within the UNFCCC process overall. Until the Copenhagen Accord was reached, the UNFCCC negotiating process had been running on two tracks, the Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) and the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). Neither of these documents has been finalized. Agriculture issues have been more integrated into the AWG-LCA discussions, and the draft contains some key elements.
The draft that came out of COP-15 made a specific reference to the importance of food security in addressing climate change, recognized the link between agriculture and food security, and acknowledged the relationship between climate adaptation and mitigation. The mandate of the AWG-LCA will continue in 2010, and negotiators will take it up again in June, in Bonn, Germany, with a goal of completing negotiations at COP 16 in Mexico in November.
African side events on agriculture and SLM: African voices were particularly strong in Copenhagen on the linkages between climate change and SLM. African countries were very active in Copenhagen, holding side events and exhibits to promote their perspectives on this point. These include the governments of Kenya, Mali, Ethiopia and Zambia, which all hosted side events that highlighted, in various ways, how African farmers can participate in carbon offset markets and how climate finance can contribute to food security and climate adaptation efforts.
At many relevant side events and at the Agriculture and Rural Development Day, Ecoagriculture Partners circulated the new Terra-Africa policy brief, TerrAfrica-supported NEPAD country flagship programme for climate change, and previous TerrAfrica policy briefs on adaptation and mitigation. |
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| Sustainable Land Management Country Programming |
Ghana finalises development of its investment framework for Sustainable Land Management
By Jonathan Allotey, Director, EPA-Ghana. jan_allotey@yahoo.com
Ghana's National Sustainable Land Management Committee (NSLMC) has finalized the Ghana Strategic Investment Framework (GSIF) for Sustainable Land Management. This follows reviews of the final draft of the GSIF made at the SLM learning workshop hosted in Ghana on 2-3 November 2009. Several activities informed the development of the GSIF. These include literature review, field consultations with relevant stakeholders and four analytical studies - the land degradation assessment study using Geographic Information System (GIS), Sustainable Land Management (SLM) Technologies Assessment, Baseline Studies, and Resource Mobilization - in all the six ecological zones of Ghana.
The GSIF identified the three northern regions of Ghana as priority for interventions as a result of the presence of a number of macro and micro watershed areas that feed into the Volta Lake and also being the most degraded area of the country.
Institutional arrangements for implementation of the National Action Programme (NAP) to combat desertification and drought have been established and are functional at three levels. Implementation is supported by the Ghana Environmental Management Project (GEMP). The structures include: Regional Environmental Management Committee (REMCs), District Environmental Management Committee (DEMCs), and Community Environmental Management Committee (CEMCs) and the project is being funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Within the context of the TerrAfrica-SIP, the NSLMC is, with the facilitation of the World Bank, developing the GEF funded Sustainable Landscape Management Project; a comprehensive approach towards sustainable land and watershed management that combines soft and hard investments at the community level. The project has four integrated components: Capacity building for integrated spatial planning, Flood and Land Management, Payment for Environmental Services, and Project Management and Monitoring and Evaluation. This project will be piloted in six districts and then up-scaled based on the level of success.
 Ethiopia's SLM national project advances
by Daniel Danano, Project coordinator Ethiocat@ethionet.et
Land degradation in Ethiopia, as in many African countries whose economies are dependent on agriculture, is a very serious problem. As a result the government has put in place a robust approach to tackle this problem. In 2008, the government of Ethiopia and the World Bank signed a grant agreement amounting to $29 million accessed through the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to finance a five-year Sustainable Land Management Project (SLMP) to be implemented in six regions. The SLM-GTZ provides technical and financial support amounting to 13 million Euros with focus in three of the regions: Amhara, Tigray and Oromiya.
This project seeks to reduce land degradation in agricultural landscapes and improve the agricultural productivity of smallholder farmers whilst reducing land degradation, leading to the protection and/or restoration of ecosystem functions and diversity in agricultural landscapes. The three inter-related components to this project are watershed management, rural land certification and administration and project management.
Implementation of activities has started in 35 watersheds in each of the five regions: Oromiya (10), Amhara (10), SNNP (7), Tigray (3), Gambela (3) and Benishangul-Gumuz (2) with a total area of about 250,000ha. Awareness raising activities have also been held in four regions namely; SNNPR, Oromya, Amhara and Tigray regions where activities have already been identified and the budget estimate worked out. Trainings in watershed management have also been undertaken in all the regions.
The SLMP is being rolled out in three phases over a five year period from 2009 to 2013 and will benefit about 500,000 smallholder farmers. |
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Framework for Sustainable Land and Water Management |
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 Experts validate CAADP's land and water framework
By Rudo E. Makunike, NEPAD Planning &Coordinating Agency, rudom@nepad.org
Agricultural experts gathered in Mali's capital, Bamako, from 9-10 February 2010, to validate the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme's (CAADP) land and water management framework (CAADP Pillar 1). CAADP - a programme of the African Union's (AU) New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), adopted by the African Heads of States and Government in Maputo in 2003 - is a framework that places Africa on an agriculture-led development strategy.
The purpose of the meeting was to get buy-in and endorsement for the framework document before its finalisation. The meeting, which included participants from countries, regional and sub-regional organisations including the Permanent Interstate Committee for drought control in the Sahel (CILSS), the Africa Union Commission, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and CAADP related institutions, was hosted by the Government of Mali.
The Pillar 1 framework is a practical tool that countries can use to promote agricultural partnerships at different levels. These include the restoration, sustenance and enhancement of the productive and protective functions of Africa's land resources by combating problems of land degradation, food insecurity and rural poverty.
CAADP Pillar 1 is one of the four CAADP Pillar frameworks that have been developed to provide guidance to countries in designing investment frameworks in their CAADP roundtable processes. Following the validation in Bamako, the Pillar 1 framework will be finalised by the core working group before being disseminated for use by countries.
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| Featured Publications |
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| Key Meetings and Events |
World Day to Combat Desertification 2010
The World Day to Combat Desertification is observed every year on 17 June. This year, the Day's theme is: Enhancing soils anywhere enhances life everywhere.
The year 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. To this end, UNCCD aims to sensitize the public to the fact that desertification, land degradation and drought dramatically affect the biodiversity resident in the soil.
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TerrAfrica Online
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Several TerrAfrica sites share knowledge about Sustainable Land Management (SLM) across the Internet. The TerrAfrica Secretariat invites you to explore these sites and welcomes your documents, photos and videos to improve these collections. Please contact the Secretariat to contribute.
SLM Knowledge Base
Resources including publications, presentations, maps and statistics on SLM
TerrAfrica on Flickr
Images of elements of SLM and landscapes in Sub-Saharan Africa
TerrAfrica's YouTube Channel
Short films about land and climate in Sub-Saharan Africa
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| Editors |
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Editor in Chief: Mr. Martin Bwalya
Contributing Editors: Dr. Andrew Kanyegirire |
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 TerrAfrica is nationally driven and depends on the leadership and commitments of Sub-Saharan African countries. The Executive Committee consists of Sub-Saharan African governments, NEPAD, the UNCCD Secretariat, the UNCCD's GM, the FAO, IFAD, UNDP, UNEP, the AfDB, the European Commission, bilateral donors, civil society representatives, and the World Bank.
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Copyright © 2009 TerrAfrica | All rights reserved. |
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