The Drylands Pilot Kicks Off: Our Vision for a Better World
A blog by Emma Catalfamo, a Frontier Tech coach
What is the problem?
As the Earth’s temperature rises, desertification – the permanent degradation of once-arable land – continues to be a significant, and growing, global risk. Each year, 12 million hectares of once productive land is lost, the equivalent of one football field per minute. Desertification is occurring in farmland all over the world, but its effect on ecosystem and biodiversity loss is most concerning. Drylands, areas with low rainfall, make up more than 40% of Earth’s terrestrial surface area and are particularly susceptible to desertification, land degradation, and drought.
Drylands are also home to some of the most vulnerable populations on earth. In the Sahel region of Africa, a significant portion of the population relies on the land for farming or pastoralism. However, the UN estimates that more than 80% of the land has degraded, posing a persistent existential threat to the population in this region.
The degradation of arable land also leads to food shortages, livelihoods insecurity, resource-related conflict and violence, political uncertainty, displacement, and other compounding and reinforcing risks to security and wellbeing. Many have already raised the alarm that conflict and hunger are “set to reach catastrophic levels” in many Sahel countries, and that humanitarian needs have already “hit unprecedented levels in recent years.”
Because humanitarian needs are so acute in the Sahel region, many efforts to address climate-related vulnerabilities end up treating symptoms of the problem rather than the underlying root causes. The WFP requires hundreds of millions of dollars each year to respond to hunger in the Sahel region. We know that multi-year cash transfers can enhance household resilience and encourage income savings in the region, but as climate change worsens and land continues to degrade, such solutions cannot ensure the long-term sustainability that is needed to respond to these challenges.
What can be done?
There are, however, examples of longer-term solutions, such as those targeting ecological regeneration. The Great Green Wall (GGW) initiative began in 2007 with an ambitious aim to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land from Senegal to Djibouti, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon, and create 10 million green jobs by 2030 through planting trees. However, the initiative has only reached about 18% of its goal in the last seventeen years, largely due to local insecurity and shifting priorities in the region.
The most promising solutions in the region have mobilised indigenous knowledge and approaches. Decades of successful land restoration using approaches like zai, farmer-managed natural regeneration, or agroecology suggest that these ecosystems can be revived. Despite their promise, these locally led efforts are underfunded, and the broader ecosystem of actors who can support restoration in the Sahel remains disconnected.
A farmer implements the zai technique in the Sahel; Image: Pexels/Sophanith CHHOUR; Source: World Economic Forum
Carbon markets could be a promising source of private investment toward restoration efforts in the Sahel. Though these markets have traditionally focused on forest ecosystems because of their reputation as robust carbon sinks, extreme heatwaves, drought, and wildfires have increased tree mortality, particularly in semi-arid regions. In fact, a study by UC Davis suggests that grasslands are a more resilient carbon sink than forests in the face of 21st Century climate change. Emerging nature and biodiversity credits also present potential sources of financing for ecosystem restoration. Once the economic value of sustainable production systems that are resistant to climate variability has been proven, private investment can also be unlocked to support regenerative farming and agriculture.
Numerous ongoing initiatives look at the potential of carbon and nature finance in the region. 1t.org is part of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) work to accelerate nature-based solutions to climate and biodiversity challenges, with a goal of conserving, restoring, and growing one trillion trees by 2030. It is another learning initiative interested in mobilizing the private sector, facilitating stakeholder partnerships, and inspiring innovation and ‘ecopreneurship.’ The Sustainable Markets Initiative brings together a wide range of private sector actors to accelerate toward climate, biodiversity, and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets. Two years ago, the WEF released a comprehensive 'action agenda’ on how to tap into the potential of the Great Greet Wall in the Sahel. The report provides actionable guidance on how to strengthen enabling environments, empower the GGW supply, generate demand for GGW products, and unlock carbon finance in the region. These ambitious efforts signal to us that a better reality for the Sahel is possible, if only these initiatives can collaborate more effectively.
Enter the Drylands Pilot
This is where the Drylands pilot, supported by the Frontier Technologies Hub, comes into play. Our goal is two-fold:
To harness the potential of nature restoration in drylands to sequester carbon and improve the lives of millions in the Sahel.
To connect the fragmented ecosystem of stakeholders and service providers working on carbon sequestration in the Sahel region to unlock positive change.
We aim to understand the potential of carbon sequestration in drylands, unlock carbon finance and private investment in nature, and foster a network of changemakers in the Sahel, creating a positive feedback loop for resilient livelihoods and sustainable development for vulnerable communities in the region.
Our Vision of a Better Future – Build it with us!
As a team, we are asking each other what a better future could look like for Sahelian communities.
We aim to bring together the broader land regeneration in the Sahel to reflect on these questions and identify entry points for each actor, as well as space for collaboration between actors.
Our Team
The Frontier Tech Hub and FCDO are starting this 12-month-long exploration into the use of technology to accelerate and scale drylands restoration in the Sahel.
Sand to Green, an innovative company specialising in transforming drylands into productive farmland, will harness its expertise in carbon, biodiversity, and agricultural issues and its experience implementing complex agricultural projects in arid zones to deliver a pilot in Senegal along the FT Hub and FCDO.
We have also established ‘critical friendships’ with groups like the World Food Programme, World Agroforestry (ICRAF), the UN Great Green Wall and others (COP Desertification, 1t.org, and the World Economic Forum) to share historical knowledge of the ecosystem, understand existing practices and approaches, and convene the wider network of stakeholders working on this issue in the Sahel.
Our Work So Far
We’ve spent the first few months of our pilot meeting with various actors in the carbon sequestration ecosystem, both in drylands and beyond. We’ve spoken to...
Technologists and ‘ecopreneurs’ working on tech solutions to support carbon sequestration and engagement with carbon markets,
Investors financing carbon sequestration projects in Africa,
Project developers designing and implementing such projects,
Consortiums of private companies financing carbon projects and buying carbon credits,
International organisations delivering funding and programming in this space.
We have mapped the land regeneration ecosystem in the Sahel, from project developers all the way to carbon credit buyers. The number of actors working in this ecosystem signals the potential for successful land restoration in drylands. But this ecosystem has proven fragmented, inspiring our team to dedicate a significant portion of our pilot to bringing these stakeholders together and fostering partnerships between them to allow for more cohesive land restoration efforts in the Sahel.
Land regeneration in the Sahel: the ecosystem
What’s next for Drylands?
We are excited to start the technological element of our work with Sand to Green, our tech partner for this pilot. They specialize in creating sustainable plantations in arid environments using their agroforestry software and managing and monitoring these plantations using field and satellite data. We will work with S2G to test potential tech solutions for land regeneration in the Sahel region through the Drylands pilot.
In June, we plan to host a virtual multistakeholder engagement event that will kick off a series of focused online engagements ultimately leading to an in-person event later this year. In this interactive co-creation event, participants from across the ecosystem will collectively explore key insights from our initial research, focusing on the needs, challenges, and articulated desires for scaling Drylands restoration in the Sahel. Providing a space to learn out loud, this event will harness the collective expertise and insights of ecosystem actors to validate our problem diagnosis and identify pathways for collaboration toward a better future for the Sahel.
Do you see yourself in this ecosystem?
Are you interested in participating in our learning out loud series? Get in touch!
Emma Catalfamo (Coach) – ecatalfamo@r4d.org
Mana Farooghi (FCDO Pioneer) - mana.farooghi@fcdo.gov.uk
If you’d like to dig in further…
🚀 Visit this pilot’s profile page
👋 Learn more about the partners by visiting Sand to Green’s website