Improving Rural Livelihoods and Sustainable Management of Dryland Forests of Eastern and Southern Africa

To support the development of a sub-Saharan forestry strategy that will outline the challenges and opportunities for developing forestry in the Africa Region, this study will look more in depth at the issues in the dryland ecosystems, building on existing programs and projects, literature, lessons learnt from the past while developing operational recommendations to be implemented. 

This activity seeks to build on the valuable analysis obtained on the policies, incentives and options for the rural poor in the Miombo Woodlands of Southern Africa, funded by PROFOR, bringing in analysis from Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. It will also go a step further to understand the impacts of climate change on the development of the forests: while climate change scenarios predict limited change in average rainfall at the national level, across the sub-region, far greater variability and less rainfall coupled with increased intensity of erosive storms are expected.  Such impacts are further exacerbated by ongoing and escalating environmental degradation and deforestation of these forests, and need to be better understood.