From 14th to 15th November the EU invited the Steering Committee of the “Reversing Land Degradation in Africa by Scaling-up EverGreen Agriculture” project to Brussels for a joint workshop. For ELD Initiative the project, which is funded by the EU and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and development (BMZ), is now slowly coming to an end.
Goal of the meeting was to revise the project process of the past year and to take a look at the obstacles that had to be overcome and the progress that was made. Together the participants discussed and reviewed the 8 national country processes critically. Component 1 of the project, which is covered by ELD Initiative is already nearing its end, with dissemination workshops for the outcomes of the national studies already ongoing.
The results of our work facilitate the initiation of policy dialogues, aiming to create additional awareness for the issue of land degradation and raising additional investments into sustainable land management measures, notably into Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR).
On the other hand, components 2 and 3 under the management of World Agroforestry (ICRAF) is now gaining substantial impetus and is reaching out to ten thousands of farmers in each project partner country and working on the rehabilitation of thousands of hectors of land. The EU has received the progress reports very favorably and looks forward to the outcomes of upcoming policy dialogues and implementation activities, aiming for a substantial upscaling of the activities in the future.
(photo credit: ICRAF)