Innovation Commission during the World Day Food promoting innovations to combat descertification

The Innovation Commission for Climate Change, Food Security, and Agriculture co-hosted a briefing event during World Food Day on October 16th in Rome with the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Arab Gulf Program for Development (AGFUND), and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) to promote a five-year flagship initiative to be announced and presented at UNCCD COP16 in December to position for scale innovations to address the causes and consequences of desertification and land degradation in African countries. The event was supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

The event was directed to Rome-based ambassadors/representatives of donor and  African countries, the Vatican, the European Commission, the Gates Foundation, and others to promote the initiative. Speakers discussed the next steps leading up to UNCCD COP16 in Riyadh December 2-13. Among them were Muhammad H. Alsalim, Director of the Projects Department at AGFUND; Lifeng Li, Director of the Land and Water Division at FAO; Juan Lucas Restrepo, Director of Global Partnerships at CGIAR, and Declan Kirrane, Managing Director of the UN Science Summit.

Professor Michael Kremer, chair of the Innovation Commission, delivered a keynote on how innovation can address land degradation and its consequences and introduced innovations that could be scaled through the flagship initiative to combat desertification. Among the innovations are digital agriculture to provide timely, science-based, and potentially customized information to farmers; training for rainwater harvesting techniques, such as demi-lunes, to combat land degradation; scaling asset-collateralized lending to help farmers acquire productive assets like rainwater harvesting tanks, which are critical for dairy farming; and village input fairs to grant access to inputs in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

This 5-year flagship initiative has gained considerable traction in recent months following key engagements around the world, and any donor, such as governments, the private sector, and philanthropies, can support the initiative by informing the Innovation Commission, AGFUND, and BADEA of their interest.

Click here to read more about the event, the initiative, and the list of potential innovations.