The integrated approach pilot program on Fostering Sustainability and Resilience for Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa is one of three integrated approaches that were agreed as part of the sixth replenishment of the GEF. The Food Security Integrated Program will target agro-ecological systems where the need to enhance food security is linked directly to opportunities for generating global environmental benefits.
The program aims to promote the sustainable management and resilience of ecosystems and their different services (land, water, biodiversity, forests) as a means to address food insecurity. At the same time, it will safeguard the long-term productive potential of critical food systems in response to changing human needs. The Food Security Integrated Program will be firmly anchored local, national and regional policy frameworks that will enable more sustainable and more resilient production systems and approaches to be scaled up across the targeted geographies.
An Expert Consultation Workshop on the Food Security Integrated Program took place from October 21 to 22, 2014, in the UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. This workshop provides a space for in-depth discussions on strategic directions for the integrated program. Specifically, the meeting will contribute towards a better understanding of countries’ priorities and opportunities for programming under this program. The discussions are organized around the three main components that are proposed for the Food Security Integrated Program: institutional frameworks; scaling up; and monitoring global environmental benefits.
Institutional frameworks in target regions
There is a growing consensus about the need to incorporate ecosystem services into resource management decisions at all levels. The Food Security Integrated Program is therefore both crucial and timely. Consistent with the programming objectives of the land degradation focal area, the GEF, through the program, will leverage investments by other development partners to ensure that the flow of agro-ecosystem services is maintained or improved.
The program will build on planned or existing initiatives, partnerships and institutional frameworks that address, inter alia, (i) genetic resources; (ii) the use of and access to agricultural inputs; as well as (iii) access to markets and extension services; with a view to mainstreaming sustainable land management practices for enhanced agro-ecosystem services and food insecurity.
Appropriate institutional and policy frameworks are key to bringing stakeholders together; to integrate indigenous and scientific knowledge; and to reconcile different stakeholder interests. The Food Security Integrated Program will work across the public and private sectors, including community leaders as well as community-based and non-governmental organizations.
Scaling up
Smallholder farmers will be the primary beneficiaries of the Food Security Integrated Program. The program will support efforts to scale-up more sustainable and more resilient approaches, practices and technologies across the targeted agro-ecological systems. These include innovative approaches to improving soil health, water resource management and vegetation cover with direct benefits to the most vulnerable land users.
To promote impacts at scale, the program will, inter alia, foster supportive policies and incentives for smallholder farmers to adopt sustainable and resilient practices (including low-emission technologies and biodiversity considerations); and promote increased private sector investment in climate-resilient and low-emission food value-chains.
Through the Food Security Integrated Program, the GEF support will specifically promote mechanisms for multi-stakeholder coordination, planning and investment in Sustainable Land Management at scale; with engagement of the private sector. This will be crucial for integrating ecosystem services into mainstream development investments to support agriculture and food security across multiple scales.
Monitoring of global environmental benefits
Land is losing its productive capacity due to different competing claims over its use. Biodiversity and ecosystem services are degraded due to unsustainable agricultural practices and land use change; or as a result of the physical modification of rivers, invasive alien species, overexploitation and pollution, as well as the adverse effects of climate change (Feld et al. 2009).
An ecosystem services approach to food security promotes functional synergies (‘multiple wins’) and manages trade-offs among various benefits. Such an approach necessitates robust monitoring of various ecosystem goods and services, including land-cover change, GHG emissions and biodiversity.
An important priority for the Food Security Integrated Program is to monitor ecosystem services across multiple scales and agro-ecologies in order to enable decision-makers to sustainably manage these services. The program will promote the application of innovative tools and practices in the target areas, and it will also seek to understand and monitor resilience, with respect to both the human and agro-ecological dimensions of food security.