The 3rd Africa Drylands Conference was held in Windhoek, Namibia from 8-12 August 2016. Delegates from global, regional, and national institutions involved in drought mitigation and drylands management in Africa called for the integration of the African Drylands Week into the work of the African Union. Sustainable management of Africa’s natural resources is key in addressing some of the continent’s socio-economic woes, the over 100 participants to the conference agreed. It would also curb illegal immigration and clip the wings of criminal networks operating in the Sahara and Sahel regions.

• Final report: Capitalizing on the opportunities offered by the Africa’s Agenda 2063, Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Land Degradation Neutrality of the UNCCD to promote resilience to droughts in the drylands in Africa

Presentations

Day one

• Third Africa Drylands Week - Objectives and Agenda
• What is going right in the drylands?
• Terrafrica - Building resilient African landscapes
• African Risk Capacity
• Presentation des programmes et projets du CILSS
• AU-SAFGRAD's activities in support to Combat desertification in Africa

Day two

• L’espace oasien et la Grande Muraille Verte
• Drought preparedness: towards long-term solutions to the Sahel and Horn of Africa’s recurrent crisis
• Building NWFP businesses that are inclusive to rural women - Case of the social enterprise Sahara Sahel Foods in Zinder, Niger Republic
• The state of response to el Niño in the Horn of Africa
• Opportunités d'investissement pour la mise en œuvre de la GMV
• Integrated approach to resilience building: a case of the Dry-lands Development Programme(DRYDEV) - A Farmer-led initiative to Enhance Water Management, Food Security, and Rural Economic Development in the Dry Lands of Burkina Faso, Ethiopia,Kenya, Mali and Niger
• Africa dryland: solutions and the way forward - A case study on family farming
• Pastoralism to sustaining rangelands ecology
• Fire in contemporary African landscapes

Day three

• Drylands Investments in the Global Agenda
• Repairing degraded landscapes for food security in southern Africa - Examples from South Africa and Namibia
• Drought management and mitigation in Eastern Africa: the case of the 2015-2016 El Nino phenomenon
• Building Institutions for Sustainable Rangelands Management
• Climate Change and Agriculture Adaptation and Mitigation - Traditional agriculture rain fed sector as a case study in Sudan

Day four

• The Africa Union vision of the GGWSSI: Place of the Southern Africa Countries
• Role of Meteorological Information for Building Resilience in African Arid lands
• Alarming Land Degradation in Africa - Trend in biomass productivity by farming system
• The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel initiative - Specialised Technical Committee
• Natural resources monitoring to support policy making in drylands
• Collect Earth and Global Dryland Assessment - Preliminary results
• Moving the Great Green Wall
• Monitoring and Evaluating NR in the drylands: the Add value of Earth Observation, the continental perspective
• The Road to UNCCD -COP 22 in Marrakech, Morocco
• Grass roots-led movement for landscape restoration
• UNEP Contribution to Sustainable Land Management (SLM) Monitoring