Author: Raffaello Cervigni
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 146480818X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Get Book
Book Description
Drylands are at the core of Africa’s development challenge. Drylands make up about 43 percent of the region’s land surface, account for about 75 percent of the area used for agriculture, and are home to about 50 percent of the population, including a disproportionate share of the poor. Due to complex interactions among many factors, vulnerability in drylands is high and rising, jeopardizing the long-term livelihood prospects for hundreds of millions of people. Climate change, which is expected to increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, will exacerbate this challenge. African governments and their partners in the international development community stand ready to tackle the challenges confronting drylands, but important questions remain unanswered about how the task should be undertaken. Do dryland environments contain enough resources to generate the food, jobs, and income needed to support sustainable livelihoods for a fast growing population? If not, can injections of external resources make up the deficit? Or is the carrying capacity of drylands so limited that outmigration should be encouraged? Based on analysis of current and projected future drivers of vulnerability and resilience, the report uses an original modeling framework to identify promising interventions, quantify their likely costs and benefits, and describe the policy trade-offs that will need to be addressed. By 2030, economic growth leading to structural change will allow some of the people living in drylands to transition to non-agriculture based livelihood strategies, reducing their vulnerability. Many others will continue to rely on livestock keeping and crop farming. For the latter group, a number of “best bet†? interventions have the potential to make a significant difference in reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience. This report evaluates the opportunities and challenges associated with these interventions, and it draws a number of conclusions that have important implications for policy making.
Author: Michael Mortimore
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521457859
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Get Book
Book Description
The image of Africa in the modern world has come to be shaped by perceptions of the drylands and their problems of poverty, drought, degradation, and famine. Michael Mortimore offers an alternative and revisionist thesis, dismissing on theoretical and empirical grounds the conventional view of runaway desertification, driven by population growth and inappropriate land use. In its place he suggests a more optimistic model of sustainable land use, based on researched case studies from East and West Africa where indigenous technological adaptation has put population growth and market opportunities to advantage. He also proposes a more appropriate set of policy priorities to support dryland peoples in their efforts to sustain land and livelihoods. The result is a remarkably clear synthesis of much of the best work that has emerged over past years.
Author: Will Critchley
Publisher: Oxfam
ISBN: 0855981709
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 92
Get Book
Book Description
This book is about the main lessons to be learnt from new approaches to soil and water conservation in sub-Saharan Africa. It presents six case studies, two each from Burkina Faso, Kenya and Mali, where soil and water conservation, based on the participation of the local people, has resulted in some success.
Author: Jeremy Lind
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1847012523
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Get Book
Book Description
Examines the new challenges facing Africa's pastoral drylands from large-scale investments and how this might affect the economic and political landscape for the regions affected and their peoples.
Author: A.J. Dietz
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402021585
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 467
Get Book
Book Description
Sahelian West Africa has recovered from the disastrous droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. People have learned to adapt to risk and uncertainty in fragile dryland environments. They, as well as global change scientists, are worried about the impact of climate change on these West African drylands. What do the experiences of the last thirty years say about the preparedness for higher temperatures, lower rainfall, and even more variability? Detailed studies on Dryland West Africa as a whole, and on Burkina Faso, Mali and Northern Ghana in particular show an advanced coping behaviour and increased adaptation, but also major differences in vulnerability and coping potential. Climate change preparedness programmes have only just started and require more robust support, and more specific social targeting, for a population which is rapidly growing, even more rapidly urbanising, and further integrating in a globalised economy. This book is the first of its kind with a comprehensive analysis of climate change experiences in West African drylands, with attention for pathways of change and the diversity of adaptation options available. This book is of interest to scientists studying global and climate change, especially dealing with issues of adaptation. Social scientists, economists, geographers and policy makers concerned with West Africa should also read this book.
Author: Philip Woodhouse
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Get Book
Book Description
For instance, the United Nations' Agenda 21 sees devolution to local communities of local resource users as the solution to the twin problems of poverty and environmental degradation. The dynamics of the African enclosures set out here challenge not only 'community-based' models of environmental management as a basis of combating poverty, but also the static vision of African society which underpins them."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Roy H. Behnke
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 364216014X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 560
Get Book
Book Description
The question in the title of this book draws attention to the shortcomings of a concept that has become a political tool of global importance even as the scientific basis for its use grows weaker. The concept of desertification, it can be argued, has ceased to be analytically useful and distorts our understanding of social-environmental systems and their resiliency, particularly in poor countries with variable rainfall and persistent poverty. For better policy and governance, we need to reconsider the scientific justification for international attempts to combat desertification. Our exploration of these issues begins in the Sahel of West Africa, where a series of severe droughts at the end of the 20th century led to the global institutionalization of the idea of desertification. It now seems incontrovertible that these droughts were not caused primarily by local land use mismanagement, effectively terminating a long-standing policy and scientific debate. There is now an opportunity to treat this episode as an object lesson in the relationship between science, the formation of public opinion and international policy-making. Looking beyond the Sahel, the chapters in this book provide case studies from around the world that examine the use and relevance of the desertification concept. Despite an increasingly sophisticated understanding of dryland environments and societies, the uses now being made of the desertification concept in parts of Asia exhibit many of the shortcomings of earlier work done in Africa. It took scientists more than three decades to transform a perceived desertification crisis in the Sahel into a non-event. This book is an effort to critically examine that experience and accelerate the learning process in other parts of the world.
Author: Frank Place
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464808295
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 116
Get Book
Book Description
Tree-based production systems have enormous potential to reduce vulnerability and increase the resilience of households living in dryland regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. Trees are key providers of biomass, which is critical for many livelihood needs. Wood from trees is the leading source of energy in many dryland countries and is an important construction material. Foliage and pods from trees and shrubs are the most important source of feed for camels and goats, which are the dominant livestock species in the more arid parts of the drylands. Trees and shrubs offer enhanced sources of the organic matter needed to improve the structure and raise the fertility of soils used for agriculture. Many parts of trees provide different medicinal products for people. And fruits and vegetable foliage harvested from trees are important seasonal food sources for people living in drylands, and for sale. The benefi ts from trees take on added value when one considers that they are relatively impervious to many of the shocks that affect other production systems, especially livestock keeping and agriculture. Trees, with their deep rooting systems, maintain their standing value and offer some production even in drought years. They are therefore a good buffer against climatic risk and are a critical element in a diversifi cation strategy designed to maintain levels of consumption and income in good times and bad. In addition, their value can be tapped when it is most needed: wood from trees can be harvested throughout the year, and many annual tree products are harvested at times different from the times when annual crops are harvested. Tree-Based Production Systems for Africa’s Drylands identifi es some of the most promising investment opportunities at the level of tree-based systems, species (products), and well-defi ned management practices for accelerating rural economic growth in the drylands.
Author: Emmanuel N. Chidumayo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136531378
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Get Book
Book Description
The dry forests and woodlands of Sub-Saharan Africa are major ecosystems, with a broad range of strong economic and cultural incentives for keeping them intact. However, few people are aware of their importance, compared to tropical rainforests, despite them being home to more than half of the continent's population. This unique book brings together scientific knowledge on this topic from East, West, and Southern Africa and describes the relationships between forests, woodlands, people and their livelihoods. Dry forest is defined as vegetation dominated by woody plants, primarily trees, the canopy of which covers more than 10 per cent of the ground surface, occurring in climates with a dry season of three months or more. This broad definition - wider than those used by many authors - incorporates vegetation types commonly termed woodland, shrubland, thicket, savanna, wooded grassland, as well as dry forest in its strict sense. The book provides a comparative analysis of management experiences from the different geographic regions, emphasizing the need to balance the utilization of dry forests and woodland products between current and future human needs. Further, the book explores the techniques and strategies that can be deployed to improve the management of African dry forests and woodlands for the benefit of all, but more importantly, the communities that live off these vegetation formations. Thus, the book lays a foundation for improving the management of dry forests and woodlands for the wide range of products and services they provide.
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
ISBN: 9251092192
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Get Book
Book Description
Drylands cover more than half sub-Saharan Africa and are home to nearly 50 percent of the region's people. This review documents resilience to climatic variability of fish resources in the sub-Saharan drylands. It also examines the potential for increasing their supply through improved use of available bodies of water, especially small reservoirs.
