Project overview:

Desertification and land degradation represent very serious challenges: they lead to hunger and poverty, unemployment, forced migration and conflict, while exacerbating climate risks such as drought and floods. However, recent successful interventions consisting of large-scale restoration demonstrate that these problems are not insurmountable.

Bold actions and investment in sustainable land management and restoration can boost food security and nutrition, improve livelihoods and help people adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Within the framework of the “FAO-Turkey Forestry Partnership Programme (FTFP)”, FAO and Turkey are working to combat land degradation and desertification through the BRIDGES project, supporting the implementation of the Great Green Wall (GGW). This African flagship programme brings prosperity to the drylands of over 20 Saharan countries through large-scale land restoration, and addresses the challenges of deforestation, desertification, biodiversity loss, and climate change and food insecurity.

The BRIDGES project benefits from the support and lessons learnt of FAO’s “Action Against Desertification (AAD)” programme, which is implementing the Great Green Wall in 11 countries: Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. The AAD programme is being implemented in collaboration with the African Union Commission with the financial support of the European Union, the OACPS Secretariat and the Republic of Turkey.

The project has four components: 

• The restoration of 5 000 ha of degraded dryland forests and landscapes using AAD’s community-based approach, strengthening national seed delivery systems and establishing networks of village level practitioners and management committees. The specific target areas include Gash Barka in Eritrea, Brakna and Trarza wilayas in Mauritania, and Kassala State in Sudan.

• Reinforcing value chains of non-timber forest products (NTFP) for resilient and successful community-based green businesses, in particular gums, resins, fodder, livestock products and food products from trees, simultaneously with village land restoration.

• Building comprehensive biophysical and socio-economic information and monitoring systems in the three countries, contributing to the implementation of GGW.

• Sharing knowledge and good practices and promoting communication, awareness raising and visibility in the three countries and across Africa’s Great Green Wall and drylands worldwide.

The project will share lessons and findings with other interested countries within the GGW programme – especially through the FAO South-South cooperation programme, and will contribute to strengthening existing large-scale restoration networks.