More than two billion hectares (ha) of land are degraded worldwide, including in the Sahel. Confronted with this, forest and landscape restoration (FLR) aims to transform degraded or barren lands into healthy and fertile landscapes where local communities, ecosystems and other stakeholders can co-exist within the framework of sustainable land management (SLM).

In the Sahel, populations depend heavily on the exploitation of natural resources: extensive pastoralism, rain-fed food crops, collection of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) for food or pharmacopoeia, and firewood for cooking. These natural resources are subject to strong biophysical pressures: low and erratic rains, high temperatures, high aridity, often poor and easily degradable soils, etc. These pressures are exacerbated by anthropogenic pressures: demographic boom, climate change, insecurity and weak governance.

EXPECTED RESULTS

The project foresees actions at the municipal and national levels in Niger and actions at the sub-regional and global levels:

• local actions implemented in an innovative and decentralized manner with rural communes as part of the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahara and the Sahel; and
• sub-regional actions (CILSS/ECOWAS area) in support of planning, biophysical and socioeconomic assessment of impacts, sub-regional monitoring and evaluation, sub-regional capitalization/dissemination; global actions in terms of global monitoring and evaluation, promotion, and identification of private funding opportunities.