This document compiles four short reports and reflection pieces produced by Natural Habitats Group (NHG) during their involvement in a LEGEND project in Sierra Leone implemented by Solidaridad, which aimed to ensure that an NHG land based investment, undertaken by group member company Natural Habitats Sierra Leone Ltd (NHSL) to develop a large oil palm plantation respected existing community members and land holding families’ land rights.

Synthesis of dialogues and evidence presented at the International Conference on Food Security in Dry Lands, Doha, Qatar, November, 2012

Widespread heat waves, floods, and droughts last year were a strong reminder of the threats posed by climate change. In the non-tropical dry areas where ICARDA works we are becoming accustomed to record high temperatures and increasing water scarcity year on year. Resilience and climate change adaptation are at the heart of ICARDA’s new Strategic Plan 2017-2026 – a bold and ambitious effort to harness cutting-edge science and deliver the tools and technologies that smallholder farmers need to maintain agricultural production and protect their livelihoods.

Project goal is to reduce food insecurity and improve livelihoods of poor people living in African
drylands by restoring degraded land
and returning it to effective and sustainable
tree, crop and livestock production, thereby
increasing land profitability as well as landscape
and livelihood resilience.

The Restoration of degraded land for food security and poverty reduction in East Africa and the Sahel: taking successes in land restoration to scale project aims to reduce food insecurity and improve livelihoods of poor people living in African drylands by restoring degraded land, and returning it to effective and sustainable tree, crop and livestock production, thereby increasing land profitability and landscape and livelihood resilience.

Restoration of degraded land for food security and poverty reduction in East Africa and the Sahel: taking successes in land restoration to scale project brochure.

Few regions present bigger development challenges than the African drylands – home to nearly 300 million people, and the vast majority of Africa’s poor. Food security and rural welfare in these areas are limited by a range of factors, biophysical, socio-economic and policy-related. And many of the biggest challenges – poverty, drought, land degradation, food insecurity – will be exacerbated by climate change.

The present document is a brief technical report highlighting activities relating to the options by context approach. The IFAD- funded project, “Restoration of degraded land for food security and poverty reduction in East Africa and the
Sahel: taking successes in land restoration to scale” was launched in March 2015 and runs until March 2018. The project
action countries include: Niger, Mali, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya. This report will focus on activities carried out in the first

ICARDA has long-standing outreach programs in North Africa, the Nile Valley, and the Red Sea region (Fig 2). In its current strategic plan, the Center will extend its work to the drylands of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Since ICARDA’s inception in 1977, the United States has been the single biggest donor to the center’s research and capacity development programs.
The benefits of this significant investment by US partners are dramatically increased crop yields and thus enhanced food security, improved livelihoods for large numbers of farmers, and the large-scale capacity building of farmers and national institutions.

Lebanon is ICARDA’s second host country and the country that witnessed the launch of the center in the mid-1970s through the ALAD program of the Ford Foundation. This process culminated in 1977 with a host country agreement signed with the Government of Lebanon in 1977, which established ICARDA here as an International Center.

This issue of Caravan showcases some of ICARDA’s efforts of coping with climate change in dry areas with improved water land management and resilient production systems. These include initiatives in conservation agriculture which provide sustained production levels while conserving the ecosystems on which our entire food system is dependent upon. ICARDA continues to make significant contributions in the promotion of sustainable water land management approaches and technologies devised by researchers and farmers.