The Food and Agricultural Organization of United Nations (FAO) today began a six-day training on Landscape restoration techniques for the Agro-Climate Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) Project technical officers across the Project participating states.
The Train the Trainers workshop presently taking place in Abuja, is to ensure that those who are responsible for the implementation of the project, especially at the community level, have a clear view of what landscape restoration across the northern region of Nigeria entails.
The workshop amongst others, aims to define the roles and responsibilities of officials in implementing the activities, including availability of community land restoration and how to ensure that lands have legal tenure status at the local authority offices.
The Train the Trainers workshop will also equip participants on strategies to coordinate common policies at the Federal and State levels as well as use of mercenaries like Delfino ploughs and tractors.
Land degradation is a problem that globally affects many through food insecurity, high food prices, climate change, environmental hazards, and loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The northern states in the Nigeria face rapid desert encroachment at levels ranging from moderate to severe. Most of the landmasses in states like Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara States are affected by desertification, while the cushion states (Federal Capital Territory, Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, Plateau, Adamawa, Taraba, Niger, Kwara and Kaduna States) are under severe ecological pressure, from migrating human and livestock populations from the frontline states.
FAO is currently supporting the Nigerian government, through the Ministries of Environment, Agriculture and Water Resources, through the implementation of FAO’s Technical Assistance to Nigeria Agro-Climatic Resilience in the Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL Project), which will be implemented in the Northern States of Nigeria, including the 11 Great Green Wall (GGW) frontline States.
This partnership with the FAO for technical assistance is for the restoration of 350, 000 hectares of degraded land under the ACReSAL Project. This is in furtherance to the ACReSAL Project efforts and mandate to recover 1 million hectares of degraded land.
The technical assistance will improve the development and delivery of resilience for land restoration and Climate Smart Agriculture knowledge and services to both the federal, state and community levels by designing training materials and curricula tailor-made for restoration and value chain development.
The support will make optimum use of the large accumulation of relevant experience and know-how on technical aspects of landscape restoration, innovative methodologies for planning, monitoring, impact evaluation and communications. These will ensure an efficient implementation of restoration interventions, supporting ACReSAL and the GGW.
Capacity building of the state officials is a critical aspect of the project and to kick-start the implementation of the project, in-line with the project work plan, the FAO has the commence series of trainings for restoration Professionals/Master Trainers who will also be in charge of field operations in their states, under the supervision of the State Project Management Unit (SPMU) and support from the FAO TA.
The training workshop is expected to improve participants’ knowledge, attitudes and skills in learning through non-formal education,management of quality restoration, follow-up activities, and helping communities to organize and manage farmer-led programs.
Expected results include participants having better understanding on landscape restoration in general and in northern Nigeria, understanding the roles and responsibilities of officials in implementing the activities, enhanced participants’ knowledge to coordinate common policy issues at the federal and state levels and amongst states.
The training was declared open by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Environment who is the Chairman, ACReSAL Project Federal Technical Committee, Mr Mahmud Kambari. Also in attendance are Mr. Abdulhamid Umar, National Project Coordinator of the ACReSAL Project, Dr Ibrahim Goni Conservator-General (C-G) of the National Park Service, FAO Technical Officials, World Bank Representative, ACReSAL state project coordinators amongst others.
