The
African-driven global partnership, spearheaded by the African Union’s New
Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) Agency and the World Bank currently
has SLWM projects and investments in 23 African countries.
The
Sahel and West Africa Program (SAWAP) has supported the implementation of
country-driven vision for integrated natural resource management for
sustainable and climate-resilient development.
“Most of
the countries are able to come back now in terms of climate change, land
degradation much more rapidly because for the last ten years and in a lot of
dialogue catalyzed by TerrAfrica, the issue of practices on sustainable natural
resource management has come up on the surface,” stated Martin Bwalya, Head of
Program Development at the NEPAD Agency.
TerrAfrica
has about $3billion worth of investments in African countries co-financed by
the World Bank and bilateral partners.
To
sustain the momentum, the initiative is creating an alliance for resilient
landscape approaches whilst allowing countries to develop their investment
opportunities.
Magda
Lovel, Practice Manager at the World Bank, says the TerrAfrica evolution would make
agriculture part of a larger integrated landscape management involving land,
water, forest and biodiversity.
The
linkages, she observed, would increase the benefits of decisions because
“looking at upper watersheds and downstream water sheds are very much linked; so
if you rehabilitate upper watershed, you have benefits downstream for
communities and peoples”.
The
success of TerrAfrica, according to Mr. Bwalya, is the ability of countries to
internalize interventions under the project.
According
to him, the initiative has also helped to galvanize dialogue at the political
and policy levels, through which governments are investing in restoration, land
degradation and water management and other practices that impact of resilience
in local communities in the face of climate change.
“What is
new now is not giving the communities fish but teaching them to fish; therefore
what remains in the countries is the capacity, ability, commitment and
willingness to actually discover and understand the problems to find solutions
for themselves,” he noted.
The
TerrAfrica Executive Committee Meeting held in Lima, Peru on the sidelines of
the 20th Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Climate Change
Convention (UNFCCC) outlined a roadmap to sustain the momentum.
The United
Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) believes the landscape
approach is critical in sustainable economic and human development.
“It is
of primary importance that the developing world uses the landscape approach
which brings up the integrity of the management of natural resources as well as
the populations living there,” noted UNCCD Special Advisor on Global Issues,
Sergio Zelaya-Bonilla.
Story by
Kofi Adu Domfeh/ in Lima, Peru
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