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The joint use of similarity and suitability analyses/maps

can guide the targeting of areas within the four agro-

ecosystems for the dissemination and promotion of the

implementation of sustainable water and land management

interventions. It is anticipated that these will be used by

decision makers, planners and donors who seek to iden-

tify areas for the scaling out of sustainable water and land

management interventions.

Implementing sustainable options to manage agriculture,

forestry and land use change in targeted areas is expected to

reduce land degradation, improve productivity and contrib-

ute to reducing current levels of greenhouse gas emissions

and increasing carbon sequestration. Many of the techni-

cal options for climate change adaptation are available and

often provide central co-benefits for carbon sequestration

and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. For example, in

dryland ecosystems, decreasing the rate of cropland and

grassland degradation and halting the process of desertifica-

tion as part of a sustainable landscape approach will reduce

the vulnerability of small-scale farmers to climate variability

and extreme events and likewise prevents high amounts of

soil and biomass carbon loss.

The Ex-Ante Carbon-balance Tool (EX-ACT) is an

appraisal system developed by the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations (FAO) providing

estimates of the impact of agriculture and forestry devel-

opment projects, programmes and policies on greenhouse

gas emissions and carbon sequestration. The net balance

of a project or policy is expressed in CO

2

equivalent

and considers all greenhouse gases that were emitted or

sequestered due to its implementation compared to a

business-as-usual scenario. The tool helps project design-

ers estimate and prioritize activities with high benefits in

economic and climate change mitigation terms and requires

only a limited set of time and data resources that fit well

to investment project and policy design processes. Up to

2015, EX-ACT analyses have been carried out in over 40

countries as part of cooperation with a wide range of stake-

holders, including the World Bank, Agence Française de

Développement, the International Fund for Agricultural

Development (IFAD) and the United States Agency for

International Development.

Sustainable agricultural practices in drylands that

conserve and increase carbon stocks in soils and biomass

lead thereby to especially strong synergies between posi-

tive livelihood and environmental outcomes. The EX-ACT

tool has been used for estimating the mitigation impacts

of the FAO-supported IFAD Family Farming Development

Programme in Niger. Within the project area, small-

scale farming systems are under pressure from prolonged

periods of soil degradation that are further intensified

through wood logging at unsustainable rates as well as low

organic matter inputs to annual croplands that experience

extended periods without soil cover. In order to reverse

the soil degradation dynamic and increase agricultural

productivity, the project invests in the scale-up of Assisted

Natural Regeneration practices that conserve and propagate

naturally occurring shrubs and trees on agricultural land.

This practice provides important benefits for maintaining

Support for long-term solutions

Since 2010 FAO, with the European Union and the Global

Mechanism of the UNCCD, has been supporting the

implementation of the African Union Initiative Great Green

Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative aimed at improving

the resilience of human and natural systems and to find

long-term solutions to desertification, land degradation and

drought, climate change and biodiversity loss. As a follow-up

to this successful cooperation, a new project, Action Against

Desertification, was recently approved under the EU-ACP

(European Union African, Caribbean and Pacific countries)

collaboration programme, to support implementation of

action plans in selected countries and expand activities to the

Caribbean and Pacific regions. Examples of success on the

ground are many: farmers from hundreds of villages, including

men and women, have been able to turn their degraded land

to production using native plants; guidelines and successful

practices are compiled and being disseminated for scaling up

action within drylands.

L

iving

L

and

a continuous soil cover, supplying organic matter to soils

and reducing soil temperature through shading. Besides,

degraded annual cropland is rehabilitated through the

practice of half-moon pits or demi-lunes that increase plant

nutrient availability as well as water storage close to the

plant root zone. Practices of improved cropland manage-

ment, afforestation of dunes and the establishment of living

hedges are further project components.

The FAO EX-ACT analysis indicated that through

these project actions a total of 6.9 millon tonnes of

CO

2

-equivalents will be mitigated over a period of 20

years. This is equivalent to annual mitigation benefits of

1.4 tCO

2

-eq per hectare. Thereby the project component

on Assisted Natural Regeneration provided the strongest

mitigation benefits due to its large scope. This analysis

identifies thus also in quantitative terms the strong climate

change mitigation benefits from sustainable management

practices in drylands.

Another example of the use of EX-ACT is the ex-post

analysis of the FAO Transboundary Agro-ecosystem

Management Project for the Kagera River Basin (Kagera

TAMP) in Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The

Kagera TAMP project lead to the scale-up of sustainable

land management practices such as agroforestry systems,

sustainable management of annual cropland, erosion

prevention on hillsides, and the increased use of soil and

water conservation structures. The EX-ACT analysis was

integrated as part of the general project monitoring frame-

work and required the monitoring and evaluation staff

to indicate the total area of achieved land management

objectives after project finalization. The EX-ACT tool was

then used to indicate the total mitigation benefits gener-

ated by the outlined activities, and allowed comparison

of the mitigation benefits of the various different project

components: Thereby agroforestry and afforestation prac-

tices could be identified as the most important carbon sinks

that are generated through the project, while also improved

management of annual croplands and grasslands contrib-

uted to the overall provision of GHG benefits.