Investment into landscape restoration for food security

13 September 2017. Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China. UNCCD COP13: ’Scaling-Up Investment into Land Restoration: Getting the Biggest Bang for the Buck’ (6-16 September )

Side event

European Commission DG DEVCO “Investment into landscape restoration for food security, resilience and climate action – key element on the way forward to Land Degradation Neutrality”

• Land degradation is at the nexus of a vicious spiral linking low primary productivity and biodiversity loss with poverty, hunger, instability and insecurity. 
• Yet the environmental, social and economic functions of even seriously degraded landscapes can be restored if all stakeholders, from farmers and pastoralists to policymakers and businesses, can find ways to work together.
• Exploring how this can be done at scale and at low cost is the objective of a new five-year European Union-funded project involving eight African countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia), which aims to uncover pathways for large-scale restoration across the world. 
• This event explored the key ingredients needed to achieve restoration at a truly massive scale, while also looking at successful initiatives from Africa and China.

Key speakers included:

• Bernard Crabbé, European Commission
• Mark Schauer, German International Cooperation
• Dennis Garrity, World Agroforestry Centre
• Cai Mantang, Elion Resources
• And high-level government representatives from selected partner countries.

Related:

Access the recent study on the links between terrorism and climate change here: http://bit.ly/terrorismCC

Background: The world’s most extensive humanitarian crisis since 1945 is currently playing out in the four countries that surround Lake Chad: Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria.

• Multiple stressors converge in the region. Unemployment, violent insurgencies, poverty and depleting resources interact with climate change and create a perfect storm of climate-fragility risks. 
• The international community must act, in order to secure lives and livelihoods. The 10-minute film investigates root causes for widespread misery and conflicts. It features interviews with local experts on Lake Chad, peacebuilders and representatives of international organizations, such as the Security Council and the World Food Programme. 
• To understand the crisis and secure lasting peace in times of climate change, one must shed light on the complexity of the crisis and learn from experiences on the ground.