Policymakers grappling with the challenge of attaining economic growth across Africa will do well to confront the twin challenges of desertification and land degradation that are silently robbing the continent of its soil fertility and ecosystem services.
Desertification is a very severe form of land degradation, involving the steady but gradual loss of agricultural productivity and distinct decline of ecological health. It is marked by blighted lunar landscapes, encroachment of cultivable land by sand dunes, denuded range lands and parched aquifers.
Desertification, drought and lately, climate change are all adversely impacting farming, threatening the principal source of livelihood – and exports – for millions of poor people.
Arid, semi-arid and dry lands are particularly prone to the ravages of desertification. Globally, dry lands are estimated to cover more than 40 percent of the Earth’s surface and are home to nearly two billion people – one-third of the world’s population.
The causes of land degradation are many, including population pressure on fragile lands, overgrazing, poor land management practices and drought.
... over the last four decades the African continent has suffered seven major episodes of drought. In two key regions – the Sahel and the Horn of Africa – the droughts of 1972-74 and 1981-84 caused massive social disruption and human suffering.
Because desertification degrades whole ecosystems, it deprives poor people of the environmental services on which they most depend. For example, degraded lands can no longer produce crops, provide forage for livestock, or provide wood for fuel. Already, farm yields across Africa are one-third less than those achieved by Asian farmers. The result is that Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where food production is stagnating, and hunger is on the rise.
Speaking to the challenges posed by a changing climate, Sir Nicholas Stern’s 2007 review “The Economics of Climate Change,” warned that declining crop yields, especially in Africa, could leave hundreds of millions without the ability to produce or purchase sufficient food.
Maintaining soil fertility and protecting the environmental resource base is critical for the largely agrarian economies of 47 countries south of the Sahara desert where the farm economy frequently accounts for anywhere between 25 to 50 percent of gross domestic product.
To tackle the problem of land degradation more forcefully in Sub-Saharan Africa, in 2005 the World Bank and its partners, including the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), launched the TerrAfrica initiative tasked with promoting sustainable land management practices by mobilizing coalitions, knowledge, and scale up financing.
“The stakes are exceedingly high,” says Christophe Crepin, a lead environmental specialist in the World Bank’s Africa Region which hosts the TerrAfrica Secretariat. “By working directly with African governments, the TerrAfrica partnership is strengthening our collective ability to deal with problems of desertification and land degradation...