WeCaN members in climate diplomacy: Building skills, raising voices at COP 30
30/11/2025
New report identifies key learning needs for a successful Great Green Wall implementation
11/12/2024
The « Knowledge for Great Green Wall Action (K4GGWA) » project supports the implementation of the Great Green Wall (GGW) in combating desertification, restoring degraded land, and improving livelihoods across the Sahara and Sahel.
Science, Technology and Innovations in support of the implementation of the Great Green Wall
04/10/2024
Advanced regional training on Collect Earth and biophysical data collections on the Great Green Wall and the Sahel
23/09/2024
FAO presents large-scale restoration success in Senegal to wider Great Green Wall stakeholders
13/09/2024
FAO and other international partners set to launch 2nd Drylands Summer School in Kenya
08/05/2024
From Dubai to the world: WeCaN member's impactful journey through UNFCCC COP28
22/12/2023
MEV-CAM announces new Toolkit on Participatory Video
28/11/2023
FAO provides insights at CRIC 21 on achieving land degradation neutrality
21/11/2023
FAO-JP GTA training explores gender and climate change in agricultural value chains
16/11/2023
South-South cooperation between Iran and China enhances dryland forest rehabilitation
25/10/2023
First Drylands Summer School ignites global collaboration in combatting dryland challenges
26/09/2023
Looking for good practices? Look no further than MEV-CAM’s new Knowledge Bank!
20/06/2023
Five key outputs from WeCaN’s first Global Gathering
30/05/2023
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Drylands matter – Experts unite to accelerate a trailblazing Global Environment Facility impact program to transform Dryland landscapes in harmony with its people and nature
27/05/2023
MEV-CAM reaches Latin America!
03/04/2023
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FAO launches first e-Learning course to transform dryland management
29/03/2023
Two promising cases of digital entrepreneurship empowering women in the forest sector
10/03/2023
COFO Working Group and International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026 collaborate on new Drylands Summer School
20/02/2023
Three things the FAO Jordan office learned from MEV-CAM – and how these skills can be applied
31/01/2023
Twelve misconceptions about agrosilvopastoral systems – and how to overcome them
14/08/2026
Agrosilvopastoral systems can contribute to food security, resilient livelihoods, biodiversity, climate adaptation and sustainable land management. Yet they are often reduced to simplified practice, such as grazing under trees or adding trees to livestock and farming landscapes; this brochure examines 12 common misconceptions about agrosilvopastoral systems and explains how evidence, policy and practice can overcome them
Advancing women's leadership in dryland regions through the three Rs: rights, representation and resources
30/10/2024
This WeCaN Nurturing Community of Knowledge Practice for Women policy brief focuses on advancing women's leadership in dryland regions through the three Rs: rights, representation and resources. It includes useful case studies collected from WeCaN members across many dryland areas, showcasing the benefits of strong women leadership on environments and communities.
Applying MEV-CAM tools: participatory video
30/01/2024
The Making Every Voice Count for Adaptive Management (MEV-CAM) toolkit provides process documentation facilitators with instruments for documenting change through participatory video to generate knowledge, monitor impact, and share practices.
Compost as solid waste management in Jordan
30/11/2023
This document aims to show the impact of good practices on local communities, from their own perspective.
Live fencing in Uganda
30/05/2023
This good practice, focusing on live fencing, comes from local communities in Uganda and provides a guide to restoring local ecosystems and farms through natural fencing methods.
Gabion baskets: A simple solution to a big problem
30/05/2023
This best practice, focusing on gabion baskets, comes from local communities in Malawi and provides a guide to the use of gabion baskets to improve landscape resilience.
From charcoal to honey in Malawi
30/05/2023
This best practice, focusing on beekeeping, comes from local communities in Malawi and provides a guide to implementing beekeeping as an alternative livelihood.
Farmer managed natural regeneration in Uganda
30/05/2023
This good practice, focusing on farmer managed natural regeneration, comes from local communities in Uganda and provides a guide to restoring local ecosystems through natural planting methods.
Theatre for development to engage local communities
30/04/2023
This best practice focuses on the use of Theatre for Development with local communities in Malawi.
Regenerative grazing for climate, ecosystem, and human health
30/11/2022
With regenerative grazing management, that is, the right management of livestock and wildlife for the right context, land degradation can be reversed, leading not only to a rapid regain of ecoystem function but to greater revenue for the women, men and youth drawing their livelihoods from these landscapes. This paper explores agroforestry, regenerative grazing management and silvopastoral systems.
Grazing with trees - A silvopastoral approach to managing and restoring drylands with trees: Policy brief
30/11/2022
The Grazing with trees policy brief accompanies the Grazing with Trees publication, giving an overview of the positive role that optimized extensive grazing livestock farming can play in the management and restoration of drylands’ forests and lands. Trees in dryland forests and wooded areas provide key ecosystem services such as animal feed, timber, fruits and, regulation of soil and water cycles.
A turning point for drought management: upscaling the silvopastoral approach
15/11/2022
This white paper provides useful background for the GLF Climate Digital Conference: A turning point for drought management: Upscaling the silvopastoral approach in the Near East North Africa (NENA) region....
Grazing with trees - A silvopastoral approach to managing and restoring drylands
30/09/2022
The ‘Grazing with Trees’ report gives a thorough assessment of the positive role that optimized extensive grazing livestock farming can play in the management and restoration of drylands’ forests and lands with trees. It assesses and provides sound evidence on the benefits of applying an integrated landscape approach and utilizing farmers and pastoralists’ knowledge to halt desertification, increase resilience, and enhance food security under the actual changing scenario.
Doing no harm while doing good - Climate and conflict sensitivity in dryland humanitarian projects. Policy brief
30/08/2022
The Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus recognizes conflict as a threat multiplier to climate change and seeks to integrate conflict sensitivity into policies and actions around natural resources. Competition for natural resources in dryland areas often leads to conflict between host communities and displaced people.
Valuing, restoring and managing “presumed drylands”: Cerrado, Miombo–Mopane woodlands and the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau
26/05/2022
The study "Valuing, restoring and managing presumed drylands: Cerrado, Miombo–Mopane woodlands and the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau" confirms the existence of 1 075 million hectares of presumed drylands that are under threat...
Deploying a humanitarian-development-peace nexus approach: Exploring, strengthening and reviving dryland ecosystems
18/10/2021
The FAO-CARE- CGIAR joint technical working paper will contribute to developing an FAO position and improved understanding of the links between, and risks of, climate change and various kinds of conflict as related to FAO’s mandate, with particular attention to crisis contexts in dryland forests and agrosilvopastoral areas. More broadly, this will feed into UN system-level discussion and processes related to the multidimensional nature of Climate Security.
Building climate-resilient dryland forests and agrosilvopastoral production systems: An approach for context-dependent economic, social and environmentally sustainable transformations
30/03/2021
With climate change impacts already felt in the world’s drylands, there is an urgent need for action, at various scales and initiated by different stakeholders, to ensure the sustainability of food production and livelihoods in these regions in the coming decades. There is also the need to rapidly establish baselines, assess and start monitoring progress on sustainability, emerging as result of the action taken.
Blooming drylands – a practical approach for context-dependent economic, social and environmentally sustainable transformations
19/03/2021
This policy brief is intended to inform decision-makers of nine transformational actions to sustain dryland production systems under the impact of climate change. It highlights the relevance of the local...
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Trees, forests and land use in drylands - The first global assessment. Full reposrt
05/12/2019
Drylands cover 41 percent of the Earth's land surface. This publication presents the results of the first global assessment of trees, forests and land use in these lands. The assessment...
The Dyland Restoration Initiative Platform (DRIP)
04/11/2017
The Dryland Restoration Initiative Platform (DRIP) is an interactive web portal with an online tool to support practitioners, project managers, policy-makers and decision-makers in compiling and analysing data and capturing...
First Drylands Summer School
Amman (Jordan), 12/09/2023 - 15/09/2023
COFO WG planning kicked off with the first partners meeting
The FAO Committee of Forestry Working Group on Dryland Forests and Agrosilvopastoral Systems launched of its first summer school, which will train champions on a transformative approach to building resilient drylands and boost dryland planning and work.
The summer school will be held alongside the COFO WG's 3rd session which will be hosted by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in June/July 2023. The initiative targets champions including planners, policymakers, and practitioners and is based on the transformative approach developed in 2021, The school will combine theoretical concepts with practical insight from case studies and one day of fieldwork. It will last four days, be delivered in English, and the trainees (champions) will have the chance to interact and discuss their work on case study data sets provided by trainers.
The lessons for the summer school are currently being put together by FAO partners, including the University of Richmond (UR), the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Wageningen and Universite Mohammed V Rabat, Uppsala University.
ELearning course
To join this program, the participants will first be required to complete the eLearning course on building climate-resilient dryland forests and agrosylvopastoral production systems found on the FAO eLearning Academy website. The e-learning course, set to be launched in December 2022, is based on knowledge from a recent FAO publication. It turns knowledge-based content from this publication into a five-part course with feasible competency-based lessons. It aims to transform the way practitioners manage their dryland forests and retain the benefits of other interventions by encouraging the transfer of soft skills and boosting multidisciplinary competencies. The e-learning course will provide context and practical examples of the use of the transformative approach to prepare participants for summer school. In addition to this prerequisite, participants will go through an application and selection process.
Sharing knowledge
Drylands are the source of livelihood for over two million people. In times with worsening impacts of climate change, it is important to build the capacities of champions to manage the fragility of dryland production systems – the summer school will play a vital role in doing just that.