FAO Launches Initiative to Fight Desertification in 11 African, Asian Countries

The environmental branch under the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has launched a program in eleven Asian and African countries to save drylands from the effects of climate change.

Those lands do get sufficient water to grow crops.

The program called the” Sustainable Management of Forests” that costs $ 104 million and it will carry out in cooperation with the International Federation to Save Nature, the World Bank, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWFN).

The program covers areas in the south, east, and west Africa in addition to the areas of green weeds, savanna, and shrubs in the middle of Asia.

The FAO seeks to keep the drylands in Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe in Africa along with areas in Kazakhstan and Mongolia in Asia.

Within the five years to come, the program will save 12 million hectares ( some 30 million acres) of drylands which also includes keeping the biopersity in 1,1 million hectares.

Management of the program plans to save ten thousand hectares from desertification and to reclaim one million hectares of forests that have disappeared under the sand of the desert.

The program aims at reducing the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) by at least 34,6 million tons and it brings direct benefits to one million people.

However,    last December the   “FAO” affirmed that human access to food is an original right, not a privilege. However, there are 820 million people who are suffering from hunger.

It is a matter of ensuring that everyone, everywhere has enough food to lead a healthy life to avoid malnourishment.

The organization’s management stressed that the matter does not stop at this point, but is also related to enabling people to feed themselves and ensure that everyone has access to healthy food systems, while at the same time preserving the environment and biopersity.

FAO, in a message on its official Twitter account, revealed that the number of people suffering from hunger around the world has increased.

The right to food was recognized in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25) as part of the right to an adequate standard of living and was enshrined in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (Article 11).