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Sand dams for climate resilience and food security in arid and semi-arid landscapes

Sand dams for climate resilience and food security in arid and semi-arid landscapes

Utooni Development Organization (UDO) is a non-governmental organization established in 2002 and registered in 2005. It is based on the early works of Utooni Development Project, a community-based self help group formed by Joshua Mukusya in 1978. Its vision is to build peaceful, healthy and happy interlinked self-sufficient communities through justified sustainable development.

 

The organization supports disadvantaged communities living in the arid and semi arid lands to transform their environment in a sustainable manner, enabling them to improve water supply, food production, income and health.

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Testing Before Scaling: Mongolia's Living Laboratory for Dryland Restoration

The Elsentasarkhai living laboratory is a permanent platform for testing dryland restoration solutions before wider investment and replication. Established in 2011 on 45 hectares at Mongolia’s dry steppe-desert steppe transition, it combines field research, multi-year monitoring, demonstration, training and knowledge exchange. Trials address drought, strong winds, shifting sand and limited water through 1 x 1 m straw checkerboards, revegetation, windbreak forest belts and cultivation of 21 rare and endangered native tree and shrub species. A 10-hectare moving-sand trial stabilized sand for three to four years when barriers were combined with revegetation. Managed by the Institute of Geography and Geoecology, the station has continued beyond the original UNDP-supported project, hosted 40+ research activities, including five international collaborations, and provided learning for researchers, students, herders and officials. Its lesson is simple: test locally, monitor over time, learn openly and scale only what works.

Regenerating Mongolia's Saxaul Forests through Livestock Exclosures and Locally Led Monitoring

Mongolia’s saxaul (Haloxylon ammodendron) forests stabilize Gobi soils, reduce sand movement, store carbon and support biodiversity, yet browsing and trampling can suppress seedlings. Since 2020, the GEF-funded ENSURE project, implemented by the Government of Mongolia with UNDP support, has combined site-targeted livestock exclosures with paired fenced-unfenced monitoring and practical training for local officers and rangers. The 2023 assessment covered eight fenced and eight comparison plots in four soums; it measured tree density, regeneration, vegetation, biomass, carbon and CO2 storage. Some protected sites showed substantially more young saxaul, while others showed limited differences, proving that fencing must be targeted and evaluated rather than counted as restoration by area alone. By 2024, community-driven regeneration measures covered more than 400 ha, including a 300-ha exclosure in Shinejinst. The approach links natural regeneration, local stewardship and evidence-based scaling for resilient dryland landscapes.

Tools to Connect People with Protected Areas: Community-Led Advisory Boards

Yaghnob National Nature Park was established in a remote mountainous region home to the Yaghnobi people, a community with ancestral ties to the area. The park creation shifted local land governance. Previously, pasture use was shaped by traditional ownership rights, long-term arrangements, and locally negotiated community practices.

Subsequently, park authorities control and allocate grazing areas through rentals, upending access for local, outside, and transiting herders. These changes fuel friction over access, trust, and decision-making. Community members are concerned grazing allocations lack environmental assessments or equitable access, while park staff must implement ambitious management plans in difficult terrain with limited experience.

In response, TNF supports a community-led advisory board. This voluntary, collaborative body connects locals, pastoralists, park staff, government authorities, and scientists to improve communication, strengthen coordination, resolve conflicts, and share conservation responsibilities.

Empowering Users for Clean Cooking – A community-driven approach to electric cooking in local government of Nepal.

 Developing countries like Nepal heavily rely on biomass fuels, contributing to climate change and health problems. In seeking to mitigate climate change, electric cooking technologies have emerged as a viable solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation while improving household ambient air quality and public health. PEEDA launched this project to combat climate change and improve health. The communities and policymakers were sensitized to adopting clean and renewable energy for cooking. Technical demonstration, live cooking sessions and the  radio jingles has been used in  creating the demands of electric stoves. Over 900 households has been supported with electric stoves and compatiable cookware in the Baiteshwor Rural Municpality. For sustaining the use of stove, 11 local technicians has been provided electric stove repair trainings.  Further at policy level,  Municipal Energy Plan (MEP) for this municipality has been developed to include the adoption of electric cooking over the next five year

Community-Led Blue Economy: Sustainable Visitor Management for Mangrove Eco-tourism in Nusa Penida Marine Protected Area

Local communities in Nusa Lembongan, within Indonesia’s Nusa Penida Marine Protected Area (MPA), have transformed their relationship with mangrove forests from resource extraction to community led ecotourism and conservation. Since 2006, the Coral Triangle Center (CTC) has supported this transition through capacity building and management assistance, enabling the community to establish a locally managed mangrove ecotourism programme that generates sustainable livelihoods while promoting conservation. Today, a village-based organization oversees tourism operations, habitat stewardship, maintenance, and waste management, with local people actively participating in conservation activities. As tourism has grown following the COVID-19 pandemic, the community has strengthened management by introducing scheduled canoe operations, transparent pricing and visitor education to improve tourism quality while safeguarding the mangrove ecosystem.

Evidence for Nature-based Solutions: How Five Countries Built a Regionally Owned Environmental Database for Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria, shared by five East African countries, supports over 45 million people through fisheries, water supply, and agriculture. Declining water quality, rising pollution, and the absence of a shared evidence base made coordinated basin management difficult. To address this, the Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC), with GIZ support under the EAC4Nature project, developed the first-ever State of the Basin Report (SoBR).

The approach combines joint water quality sampling at 44 stations across three countries, consultations with all five Partner States – Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, and integration of findings into the Lake Victoria Basin Water Information System (LVB-WIS).

The SoBR follows a five-year cycle as a shared baseline for planning, policy, and investment. It identifies Nature-based Solutions – wetland rehabilitation, reforestation, and catchment restoration – as the most cost-effective pathway to improve water quality and build climate resilience. All five Partner States endorsed the report.

Restoring Lake Hawassa: How Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships and Nature-Based Solutions reverse Catchment Degradation

In Ethiopia’s Rift Valley, Lake Hawassa faces accelerating degradation from deforestation, pollution, erosion and rapid urbanisation – pressures no single actor can address alone. This solution establishes an inclusive multi-stakeholder partnership uniting public authorities, private companies and civil society to protect the lake through coordinated catchment stewardship. 

Guided by the Natural Resources Risk and Action Framework (NRAF) developed between 2015 and 2020, partners jointly assessed risks, planned actions and implemented nature-based solutions (NbS). 

Key building blocks included:

  • Creating a multi-stakeholder platform, 
  • Applying the NRAF,
  • Joint planning, 
  • Ecohydrological restoration, 
  • Waste management, 
  • Public and private financing; and 
  • Monitoring. 

The partnership is now fully government-managed, and the approach upscaled to federal guidelines for restoring, rehabilitating and protecting surface water bodies all over the country. 

URUGUAY. Strengthening biodiversity and land conservation policies as pillars of sustainable development.

In Uruguay, against a backdrop of the loss of habitat critical to biodiversity, the degradation of vulnerable ecosystems and soils due to the intensification and expansion of livestock and agricultural activities, poor grassland management practices, and pollution of water bodies and wetlands, the project aimed to implement actions to strengthen systemic, financial, and institutional capacities for biodiversity conservation and sustainable land management, thereby improving the effectiveness and sustainability of the management of protected areas, associated productive lands, and human well-being. This was achieved through: the establishment of a regulatory, financial, and institutional framework for biodiversity conservation and land degradation neutrality; Implementation of biodiversity and land conservation measures at pilot sites; and Knowledge management, monitoring and evaluation, and learning, to promote dialogue between public and private stakeholders.

URUGUAY. Financial Incentives for Sustainable Production

The Uruguayan Ministry of the Environment, with support from UNDP and the GEF through the project “Biodiversity and Land Conservation,” issued a call for proposals on sustainable production to organizations of producers of goods and services. An open competition was held for non-reimbursable grants aimed at groups of producers with proposals that incorporate improvements in environmental sustainability based on the sustainable use of natural resources. The call for proposals included an affirmative action strategy, reserving 30% of the awarded grants for women-led groups, as well as giving preference to groups that include young people. A total of 7 groups were selected, divided into 3 priority areas: i) sustainable livestock production on pastures; ii) nature tourism on livestock ranches; and iii) sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation.

Climate-resilient Fodder Storage Infrastructure for Disaster Risk Reduction and Pastoral Adaptation in Mongolia

Mongolia’s pastoral communities are increasingly exposed to climate-related hazards, particularly recurrent droughts and dzud that cause severe livestock losses and threaten rural livelihoods. To strengthen climate resilience and disaster preparedness, the UNDP ADAPT Project implemented a climate-resilient fodder storage solution in Khovd, Zavkhan, Dornod and Sukhbaatar provinces.

The solution established and rehabilitated hay and feed storage facilities in climate-vulnerable areas identified through risk assessments using climate, vegetation and livestock mortality data. In total, 48 storage facilities were developed to improve emergency fodder reserves and ensure timely access to feed during harsh winter and spring conditions.

The intervention combines risk-informed planning, resilient infrastructure, local participation and institutional collaboration. It has improved herders’ adaptive capacity, reduced vulnerability to climate shocks, strengthened food security for livestock, and enhanced local disaster risk reduction.

Improving farm sustainable land management practices through direct farmer assistance, Ridge to Reef approach

In Seychelles, increasing developmental pressures are degrading land, forests and soils leading to a loss of ecosystem services carbon sequestration and the ability to combat climate change. In an effort to reverse these pressures and restore degraded land, the project: ‘A Ridge to Reef Approach for the Integrated Management of Marine, Coastal and Terrestrial Ecosystems’ (Ridge to Reef) has been working with farmers to improve their sustainable land management practices. 

Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implemented in partnership with UNDP, the ‘Ridge to Reef’ approach is an integrated management strategy for marine, coastal, and terrestrial ecosystems, focusing on the connection between land and sea to address environmental degradation. 

In particular, the project has been working directly with farmers to improve their sustainable land management practices (SLM). Through direct farmer assistance these farmers have begun to shift their practices to improve ecosystem health and resiliency.  

From Blanket to Precision: A Data-Driven Decision Support Tool for Site-Specific Fertilizer Recommendations in Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s smallholder farmers continue to face large yield gaps despite decades of fertiliser use and agricultural research investment. A key constraint has been blanket fertiliser recommendations: uniform rates applied nationwide without accounting for local soils, agro‑ecological conditions, or crop diversity. This one‑size‑fits‑all approach leads to systematic misapplication, with over‑use in some areas and under‑use in others. As a result, Ethiopian wheat farmers achieve only 35-45% of potential yields, while more than 60 years of agronomic research data remained fragmented. The Supporting Soil Health Interventions in Ethiopia (SSHI) project, co‑funded by BMZ and the Gates Foundation and implemented by GIZ with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, EIAR, and the Ministry of Agriculture, addressed this gap by developing Ethiopia’s first Site‑Specific Fertiliser Decision Support Tool. Using machine learning, the tool delivers localised fertiliser recommendations, validated across hundreds of farms.

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