Background

Unsustainable agricultural practices and over-exploitation of natural resources have resulted in serious land degradation over an area equivalent to the size of Mexico, USA and Canada combined. The results are impoverished soils and impaired ecosystem services, which again result in reduced agricultural yields that affect an estimated 3 billion people – exacerbating poverty, reducing food security and negatively impacting health and nutrition.

These processes are having disproportionately large effects on smallholder farmers and vulnerable groups such as women and children among the rural poor who often lack the resources to buffer against the effects of land degradation and climate change.

Overall goal

To enhance IFAD ASAP’s contribution to improving food security and the resilience of smallholder farming and agro-pastoral systems in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland.

Stakeholder engagement

The IFAD Earth Observation project has undertaken intensive stakeholder engagement facilitated using the SHARED methodology. Two regional workshops were held with stakeholder representing Kenya and Uganda and Lesotho and Swaziland respectively.  The reports summarize the workshops as stakeholders were guided in the co-design of country dashboards. These dashboards, which are designed from the country and project perspective will allow for the best available evidence, especially focused on ecosystem health and household resilience to be used and readily integrated by project teams in planning and monitoring and targeting of interventions.

Contact

Dr. Tor-G. Vagen (ICRAF)

t.vagen@cgiar.org