Natural resources-based livelihood strategies in the villages of East Hanahai, Paje and West Hanahai

The project addresses the issue of water scarcity, which threatens biodiversity and the local community. The project aims to create conditions for controlled water inflow and retention, improving the area’s resilience to climate extremes and enhancing conditions for livestock, wildlife, tourism, and biodiversity conservation, all without jeopardizing the flood defense system. 

The project activities were focused on the reconstruction and modernization of parts of the canal network to make it resemble natural water habitats as closely as possible, with sloped banks to allow animals easier access to water, including the construction of overflow weirs to improve the water regime in the Crvenka marsh depressions and control the water level. 

In Ethiopia’s lowlands, climate change, erosion and drought degrade land, cut yields and fuel conflicts among agro-pastoralists. The Dry Valley Rehabilitation and Productive Use approach under the global GIZ ProSoil programme integrates technical and socio-ecological measures to restore dry valleys, secure water and promote sustainable land use. The approach uses Water Spreading Weirs, Dry-Stone Measures  and biological measures. Water Spreading Weirs span dry riverbeds to spread and slow floods, enhance infiltration, trap nutrient-rich sediments and improve soils and vegetation. Based on a traditional and administrative system, the approach follows 7 steps from satellite-based suitability mapping to participatory planning by user cooperatives, rehabilitation and productive use. GIZ, BMZ, Ethiopian agencies, research bodies and communities collaborated to build 110 Water Spreading Weirs and 205 Dry-Stone Measures in Afar with similar work in Somali and Oromia, restoring 55,500 ha of degraded land and supporting 6,000 people.

Guatemala is considered as one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, facing threats to water and food security as well as livelihoods. Despite this, climate action has received insufficient consideration in the country’s development agenda and local planning. 

To address these issues, the EbA-LAC program has collaborated with relevant institutional teams to establish a joint approach towards guiding municipalities in the incorporation of climate considerations into their planning and budgeting processes. Through advocacy actions, key  actors have updated the public investment system to include adaptation products, providing a procedural framework for municipalities to access funding and include adaptation measures in municipal budgets. In addition, by improving inter-institutional coordination, facilitating joint municipal planning tools, as well as strengthening municipalitechnical capacities, EbA-LAC has succeeded in paving the way for municipalities to leverage synergies towards an increased resilience.

In the Boeny region of Madagascar, communities are facing landscape degradation due to unsustainable agricultural practices (slash-and-burn agriculture, deforestation etc.) and repetitive bush fires. The consequences for agricultural production are serious, posing a dilemma between conserving forests as a home to endangered species and ensuring food security through agricultural expansion. On top, climate change poses additional challenges to the grazing system of around 70 percent of Malagasy households being involved in raising livestock. Traditional spatial approaches separating conservation and production have proven inadequate. The concept of “Aménagement Agro-Sylvo-Pastoral Durable” (ASPD; sustainable agro-sylvo-pastoral management) has been developed with the objective to balance use of space. By combining agriculture, forestry, and livestock planning to enhance productivity while preserving natural resources, ASPD offers an integrated solution, with a focus on the adoption of climate-smart pasture management. 

Recent studies suggest that 12-15% of the Kenya’s total land area is suffering from severe to very severe degradation. Very densely populated Western Kenya is one of the hotspots where the rate of landscape degradation is rapidly increasing, with soils lost on average 0.5 t ha per year in 2017 compared to 0.3 t ha per year in 1995. This in turn leads to low and inadequate food supply and farm incomes. Unpredictable periods of drought and variable rainfall due to climate change are further exacerbating the situation. The solution provided by agroecological methods is to reverse land degradation and provide long-term sustainable methods of soil management as well as new income streams for farmers. Three climate-smart solutions have been assessed and promoted by the GIZ-supported Global Programme “ProSoil”: vermicomposting, conservation agriculture, and agroforestry. The solutions can be aligned or applied separately to meet individual farmers’ needs. 

Multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) are collaborations in which actors from at least three distinct sectors work together toward shared development goals. MSPs enable partners to combine knowledge, resources, technologies, and networks, allowing more integrated responses to challenges—such as supporting biodiversity-based value chains and adaptation to climate change—that no single actor can address alone. Gums and resins value chains in Marsabit County were selected to generate additional income for pastoralist communities in dryland areas. This decision was based on the following factors:

• Marsabit County had developed a gums and resins strategy awaiting validation.
• An organized cooperative already existed and could serve as a multiplier.
• Private sector actors confirmed significant untapped potential for biodiversity valorization.
• The national trust “IPLCs of Kenya” was established to work on biodiversity-related issues.
• The Wildlife Research and Training Institute was an ideal partner for developing training modules.