Smallholder farmers in the Arabian Peninsula region are severely constrained by the region’s extreme aridity, scanty water resources and erratic rainfall. Conditions have become even more challenging as over 95% of the region’s land area now faces some form of desertification from wind and water erosion, and salinization. The increasing population pressure is leading to excessive use of underground water and dangerous dependence on food import, threatening food security in the region. The initiative aims to improve the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and food security in Arabian Peninsula through the development, transfer and scaling out of sustainable natural resource management technologies, grounded in maximizing the efficiency of water use – a critical performance criteria in the severely water scarce region. The project is bringing innovations in forage production, rangeland rehabilitation, protected agriculture and related capacity building to seven beneficiary countries: Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.