“We need to increase the resilience of agriculture livelihoods to climate shocks especially for small-scale farmers, pastoralists and forest dependent communities who are on the front lines of climate disasters,” said FAO Deputy Director-General Maria Helena Semedo at a high-level event on the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative at COP21 in Paris, following a Heads of State Summit on the Great Green Wall and Lake Chad yesterday hosted by the French President.

Ms Semedo added that meaningful partnership is key to the success of the Great Green Wall initiative in which FAO, in collaboration with many partners, including UNCCD and GEF Secretariats, and the European Union, has provided technical and financial assistance to countries in assessing and documenting land degradation, in scaling up sustainable land management in sub-Saharan Africa and in developing drought risk management strategies.

FAO is presently working with its partners on implementing “Action Against Desertification”, an initiative of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) with financial assistance of the European Union (EU) to promote sustainable land management and restore drylands and degraded lands in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.