By Madjiguene Seck, Communications Officer at the World Bank
The global partnership TerrAfrica has brought together key actors across sectors, borders and faiths to address degradation of the land and build greener landscapes in Africa. For the past decade, it has mobilized $3 billion in investments in sustainable land and water management, working with 24 African countries and 20 partners. Now TerrAfrica aims to build an even stronger alliance – at the Global Landscapes Forum 2015.
“TerrAfrica partners have created a successful coalition that brought land degradation and its management to the forefront of many discussions. TerrAfrica is now recognized as a game changer and a partner of choice for building the resilience of ecosystems and the people living in them,” says Magda Lovei, World Bank Practice Manager for Environment & Natural Resources.
Created after the 2004 Paris conference on donors’ harmonization, TerrAfrica focused on scaling up investment, building coalitions and sharing knowledge. It has been dynamic, evolving its vision to match the changing global context. From its initial focus on agriculture, the partnership has moved to sustainable land and water management and to the use of a landscape approach to make both ecosystems and, with that, people more resilient to climate change.
The Great Green Wall
One example of the achievements under the initiative is the Sahel & West Africa Program (SAWAP) of the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which contributed $1.1 billion to the Great Green Wall Initiative that supports the transformation of the region into a stable, sustainable, and resilient one. “It promotes greater investments in a mosaic of sustainable land-use practices in 12 countries,” explains Paola Agostini, World Bank TerrAfrica Coordinator.
The SAWAP includes Ethiopia where in less than 10 years 15 million hectares were restored and over 30 million people benefitted from the government’s Sustainable Land Management Program.
Success in the use of a landscape approach requires the involvement of all actors, each one with a specific role to play in making resilient landscapes a reality. World Bank partners prepared the critical analysis for such an approach that promotes inclusive and sustainable use and management of natural resources, centered on people’s social, economic and environmental welfare.
The major regional study Enhancing Resilience in African Drylands explores interventions to transform the lives of the 325 million people living in the drylands that make up 43% of the total land area and account for 75% of the area used for agriculture. By 2030, up to 100 million more people could be affected. Therefore it is imperative to find measures to reduce the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of these populations.
“Fortunately a colossal amount of human energy is being deployed to overcome all these obstacles, with the ultimate goal of achieving sustainable development for Africa. The landscape movement is a perfect illustration of this mobilization both at African and global levels,” says Ibrahim Mayaki, Executive Secretary of the Africa Union NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency.
Moving towards landscape approaches
As shown at the Global Landscapes Forum in Lima, support for landscape approaches instead of sectoral approaches is growing globally. The deeper discussions focused on the how-to: what do landscape approaches mean for institutions and technologies. Participants also discussed social issues, how to align development, climate actions and financing mechanisms. TerrAfrica’s contribution was key to showcasing Africa’s challenges, lessons, and opportunities for sustainable natural resources management and for moving towards a landscape approach.
The trend towards landscape approaches is further strengthened by the Africa Landscapes Action Plan, supported by the NEPAD, an ambitious plan that spells out priority actions that embrace all actors, extends to all sectors and integrates policies and services. It commits partners to change policies, build institutions, develop business plans, balance power dynamics and develop technologies that together will bring concrete, sustainable solutions.
Following the Forum, the African Union/NEPAD Agency, in collaboration with the World Bank, TerrAfrica, the World Resources Institute, African centers of excellence like the CILSS and others, are joining forces to build an alliance for resilient landscapes to be launched at the 2015 Global Landscapes Forum in Paris.
This future alliance presents an opportunity to scale up and leverage sectorial interventions such that the whole is greater than the sum of individual interventions in terms of ecological and economic gains.
