Globally, 33 % of land in production areas is moderately to highly degraded. Populations of dryland areas where significant degradation is occurring are among the most vulnerable, in terms of quality of their livelihoods and of the long-term resilience of these ecosystems. FAO is developing options to avoid further degradation and to support the restoration of already degraded lands. This is supported by sustainable land management (SLM) policies and practices, including relevant corresponding assessment, planning and management tools. These efforts aim at reducing (and reversing) the transformation of currently productive and forested lands into unproductive or degraded lands through unsustainable...

In the framework of the project “More effective and sustainable investments in water for poverty reduction”, a national validation workshop on Investment Potential in Agricultural Water Management in Rwanda will take place on 14 December in Kigali. This workshop aims at validating the livelihood zone maps and the suitability maps of selected agricultural water management solutions. It will also support the development of the investment brief in agricultural water management. The workshop will gather a multidisciplinary group of experts who already attended the mapping workshop in March 2017 and who provided quality technical advice for the mapping process. This group...

Water scarcity is one of the major challenges of the 21st century. There is unprecedented pressure and competition for water resources due to factors such as population growth and mobility, economic development, urbanization, changes in traditional diets, migration and pollution. FAO estimates that more than 40% of the world’ s rural population in river basins are classified as water scarce (2011). In the Middle East, Northern Africa and Central Asia, many countries are already withdrawing in excess of critical thresholds. This situation is exacerbated by growing climate change effects and bio-energy demands in many parts of the world. Irrigation is...

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The workshop contributes to the Global Framework for Water Scarcity in Agriculture (WASAG), which was launched during COP23 in 2017. It currently has thirty five partners from research institutions, think tank organizations, global partnerships, the United Nations and international agencies that work collectively on the issues of water scarcity.

The aim of the seminar in particular is to showcase the Water-Energy-Food Nexus-related work of the participating Italian research institutions and to discuss how this work can support progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically Goal 2 on Zero Hunger, Goal 6 on Water, Goal 7 on Energy, and Goal...