Highlight: African Initiative for Combating Desertification

28-30 August 2018. African Initiative for Combating Desertification to Strengthen Resilience to Climate Change in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

The Government of Kenya, the Government of Senegal, JICA, and the UNCCD with partner African countries and development partners officially announced the launch of the initiative at TICAD VI in Nairobi in August 2016. They agreed to work together to combat desertification for achieving the SDGs in the Sahel and Horn of Africa, contributing to mitigating poverty, and to greater peace and stability in the region and the world at large.

The African Initiative includes 7 countries in the Horn of Africa and 8 in the Sahel.

• Horn of Africa – Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya*, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan
• Sahel – Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal

Partner Organizations are

• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 
• Global Environment Facility (GEF), 
• Permanent Interstates Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), 
• International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)

Objectives:

ICARDA researcher Claudio Zucca in the jury
to select best practices with high scaling potential
in the Sahel: An event from AUG 28-30 @aicd_official

The objective will be achieved through:

1. Building networks: A robust network among participating countries and development partners is built for combating desertification and strengthening resilience to climate change in the Sahel and Horn of Africa, and contributing to raising global awareness of desertification 
2. Knowledge-sharing: Knowledge and experiences on combating desertification are shared to enhance the effectiveness development efforts in the region 
3. Improving access to finance Access to available international development finance is improved to promote measures for combating desertification in the region.

Call for proposals ‘Voices from the Field’

To accelerate knowledge-sharing among the AI-CD participating countries, the AI-CD Secretariat called for the submission of ‘Voices from the Field’ that deal with good practices in combating desertification