Sustainable management of dryland landscapes in Burkina Faso

Objectives

To achieve large-scale restoration of dryland landscapes and sustainable livelihoods in Burkina Faso through adoption of sustainable land management practices by rural communities.

Other

Note: Disbursement data provided is cumulative and covers disbursement made by the project Agency.

Target Groups

The project will strengthen the governance and management frameworks for dryland management across three landscapes that cover 10 communes. These landscapes are multi-use systems that are essential to the food security and livelihoods of the approximately people who live within them. The ecosystems of the landscapes are also vital to residents of the landscapes, and people beyond, who rely on them for food production, water management, energy and many other services. Over numerous decades, the environmental and socio-economic conditions within the project area have been heavily impacted by land degradation due to human interventions and climate change and variability. Today, these areas are facing numerous environmental problems that affect socio-economic conditions. The changes that have happened and their negative environmental impacts have significantly affected production systems (e.g., and resulted in increased conflicts over land and natural resources. Establishing effective governance and management systems for restoration and sustainable development will provide an improved means for stakeholders to dialogue and develop solutions to priority environmental problems. The project will build off traditional knowledge and scientific evidence to develop climate-proof restoration, management and natural resource use strategies that are sustainable and can be adapted to respond to changing conditions. The application of these strategies will contribute to maintaining or improving the values and functions of the landscapes’ ecosystems, improving their resilience, their ability to supply critical services and their ability to support multiple production systems. In turn this will build the adaptive capacity and resilience of local communities and the broader stakeholder community in the face of growing anthropogenic pressures and climate variability. In addition, the project will improve the capacity and resilience of local communities by strengthening the viability and sustainability of key agro-sylvo-pastoral value chains upon which the vast majority of people within the landscape rely for their food security and livelihoods. Without the intervention of this project, unsustainable practices and anthropogenic pressures will continue to negatively impact and degrade the area targeted by this project. These negative impacts will put at risk the ecological and livelihood systems upon which local communities directly depend and will increase the stressors confronting thousands of households across the region. These households will also have reduced flexibility to respond to the impacts of climate change.