Greening

Integrated Resilience in the Sahel

What would it take to bring an arid landscape back to life?
The World Food Programme restores degraded land across the Sahel, turning fragile terrain into productive, resilient ecosystems through sustainable land and water management. Its greening initiatives rebuild food systems, strengthen livelihoods, and reduce dependence on aid.

Launching greening initiatives in the Sahel is difficult because extreme climate variability, degraded soils, and water scarcity make it hard for vegetation to establish and survive.

These environmental constraints are compounded by poverty, food insecurity, and limited infrastructure, which force communities to prioritize immediate survival over long-term restoration. Success depends on sustained coordination, local participation, and long-term investment, all of which are challenging to maintain in fragile and resource-constrained settings.

3.2 million people benefited from activities in 2023 in over 3,190 villages, and over 280,240 hectares of land was rehabilitated by Sahelians since 2018. The 2023–2028 phase of the Sahel Integrated Resilience Programme continues to build regional resilience while solidifying regional and national partnerships that will be charged with carrying the vision and projects forward into the future.

Impact Simulator

Explore the impacts of desertification on communities in the Tandou Valley and learn how the WFP’s greening initiatives are deepening resilience across the Sahel.

Tandou Valley

The rural community of the Tandou Valley in southeastern Chad has survived in the semi-arid landscape of the Sahel and is now adapting to a fast-changing world.

Current Challenges

Like many other communities in Chad and across the Sahel, the Tandou Valley faces multiple intertwined challenges, including a degraded ecological landscape, climate change, hunger, poverty, and armed conflict.

Adaptive Planning

WFP’s three-pronged approach to project development provides an adaptive framework to create a collaborative plan to address food security crises while fostering long-term resilience.

Interventions & Foundations for Resilience

Multiple interventions are underway to counter environmental degradation, food and nutrition insecurity, and intensifying climate change. These efforts are supported through infrastructure and ecological design.

Outcomes

Assessing outcomes is an integral component of adaptive management. Positive changes are the goal, but unfulfilled objectives can also offer lessons for shifting to more effective strategies.

Integrated Resilience in the Sahel

Impact Simulator

Explore the impacts of desertification on communities in the Tandou Valley and learn how the WFP’s greening initiatives are deepening resilience across the Sahel.

Tandou Valley

The rural community of the Tandou Valley in southeastern Chad has survived in the semi-arid landscape of the Sahel and is now adapting to a fast-changing world.

Current Challenges

Like many other communities in Chad and across the Sahel, the Tandou Valley faces multiple intertwined challenges, including a degraded ecological landscape, climate change, hunger, poverty, and armed conflict.

Adaptive Planning

WFP’s three-pronged approach to project development provides an adaptive framework to create a collaborative plan to address food security crises while fostering long-term resilience.

Interventions & Foundations for Resilience

Multiple interventions are underway to counter environmental degradation, food and nutrition insecurity, and intensifying climate change. These efforts are supported through infrastructure and ecological design.

Outcomes

Assessing outcomes is an integral component of adaptive management. Positive changes are the goal, but unfulfilled objectives can also offer lessons for shifting to more effective strategies.

Lex Icons™

Lex Icons™ are an eminently useful, peer-reviewed visual language of terms and principles that describe desertification solutions.

THE LEXICON

Thelexicon.org

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DOMAIN AREAS

Nature-Positive Solutions

Coastal Restoration

EBF

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