The Acting National Project Coordinator of the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL), Engr. Anda Yalaks has revealed that the project was willing and ready to partner with AFR100 initiative and the National Agency for Great Green Wall (NAGGW) to achieve the National landscape Restoration Target of 4 million by 2030.
This came in a press statement signed by the Jos Office of ACReSAL Information Officer, Mathew Bawul and made available to SUNDAY STANDARD in Jos, the Plateau State capital recently, shortly after a virtual meeting with AFR100 Initiative NAGGW and ACReSAL participating states hosted in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory.
The Acting NPC opined that there was need for a robust monitory and evaluation system in place to enhance on the ground monitoring, tracking and reporting of project implementation and capacity building to ensure the delivery of the targeted 1 million hectares target specifically for ACReSAL.
He said, “the component of livelihood is critical in the project given that, the communities living at the project corridors are bedeviled with abject poverty and for ACReSAL to achieve its land restoration target, the project needs both technical and financial assistance to help the communities.
“The AFR100 initiative would aid the project to obtain technical assistance, facilitate resources mobilization, more importantly, grants as well as knowledge sharing and project visibility to see to the success of this project where those living in abject poverty will be eased of their conditions”, Yalaks enthused.
On his part, the Acting Head of Environmental Sustainability Division at the African Union Development Agency (NEPAD) Mamadou Diakhite, noted that every year, nearly 3 million hectares of forests were lost in Africa. “65% of land in Africa is affected by degradation and 3% of GDP is lost annually from soil and nutrient depletion on cropland,” he said.
“Rural smallholder farmers suffer the most, as they are largely dependent on the stable weather patterns, healthy soils and tree cover as well as water that degraded land threaten. The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) which is a project under (AUDA-NEPAD) is a country-led effort to bring 100 million hectares of these deforested and degraded landscapes across Africa into restoration by 2030”, Mamadou highlighted.
He, therefore, indicated that presently, 30 African nations including Nigeria have signed onto AFR100 and committed a combined 126 million hectares of land to be restored and that, the initiative connects political partners, participating African nations with technical and financial support to scale up restoration on the ground and capture associated benefits for food security, climate change resilience and poverty alleviation.
Earlier, the Director General, National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGW), Dr. Yusuf Maina Bukar, said that he was extremely happy about the ACReSAL project because 11 out of 20 states in partnership were in the front-line states of the (NAGGW). What ACReSAL is doing is similar to that of NAGGW, so, there is need for synergy and commitment to help each of the organisations to upscale landscapes restoration in Nigeria leveraging on the AFR100 Initiative to meet our national target of 4 million hectares by 2030 and even surpass it”, he said.
