Sustainable management of water, land, &

ecosystems in ECA: ASARECA perspective

on challenges, opportunities & priorities

Notes presented at WLE Nile Planning Meeting

23 September, NBI - Entebbe

By Hezron Mogaka

Program Manager – NRM&B

h.mogaka@asareca.org

NRM & ecosystems services theme

Improving agricultural water productivity

Soil health improvement

Adoption of climate smart forestry, agro-forestry and

biodiversity conservation

Enhancing resilience of dry-land agricultural systems

Gender responsive NRM policies and governance

issues – with a focus on land

Managing ecosystems for quality, equitable and

sustainable services

CountryJuly 1, 2013

projection

Average

relative

annual

growth (%)

Average

absolute

annual

growth

Estimated

doubling

time

(Years)

Ethiopia 86,614,000 2.67 2,253,000 26

D. R. Congo 74,618,000 3.23 2,334,000 22

Tanzania 45,950,000 2.69 1,204,000 26

Kenya 43,291,000 3.01 1,266,000 23

Uganda 35,363,000 3.61 1,232,000 20

Sudan 35,150,000 2.52 863,000 28

Madagascar 21,852,000 2.75 585,000 26

Rwanda 10,780,000 2.63 276,000 27

South Sudan 10,334,000 4.40 436,000 16

Burundi 9,023,000 2.36 208,000 30

Eritrea 4,980,000 4.05 194,000 17

Total 377,955,000 3.08 10,851,000 24

Challenges of enhancing sustainable water, land &

ecosystems management

How to cost-

effectively

enhance

water

availability &

productivity

– equity &

gender

responsive

Challenges cont’d

How to create and sustain appropriate institutional

structures and arrangements to support sustainable &

optimised land management – address land degradation,

loss of agricultural land, markets, value preposition, &

productivity

How to attract adequate attention & focus of policy

makers and senior planners on the value and role of

water, land and ecosystems in supporting national and

regional economic & social development

How to enhance accelerated adoption of existing

innovations (technology, practices & knowledge) in

optimizing on agricultural water, land & ecosystem)

Challenges cont’dAttaining an efficiently working relationship among various

partners for each of the interrelated sub-sectors

How to respond

adequately towards

rapidly varying &

changing climatic

conditions

How to effectively

infuse gender into

each of the sectors

Opportunities & priorities

Brighter side of African economy

4 of the world’s 30 fastest growing economies are in ECA

sub-region (IMF World Economic Outlook)

Rwanda – 7.7 (14)

D. R Congo - 7.1 (21)

Ethiopia - 7.0 (23)

Tanzania - 6.5 (29)

Africa is a new frontier for agricultural expansion –

opening up new areas, sustainable intensification,

adoption of efficient technologies, shift to irrigated &

mechanised agriculture, growing political support to

agriculture & investment in climate smart agriculture

Huge potential in irrigable land

Collection of technologies for optimizing water, land uses

Innovative approaches of promoting sustainable water,

land, and ecosystem management - institutions

Markets, value addition &

private-public partnerships

Social capital & capacity

building

Priorities areas of investment

Water productivity enhancement

Options for integrated management of crop, soil

and water resources that enhance and stabilize

productivity while ensuring sustainable

management of natural resources under variable

and changing climatic conditions

Technologies/enterprises that provide better

market opportunities and encourage investments

by farmers and other actors in sustainable

intensification of agriculture to create new sources

of income growth and diversify livelihoods through

improved management of agricultural water

Water productivity enhancement

How diverse rural households and their support

institutions may be empowered to become pro-

active members of value chains within the context

of improving agricultural water productivity

How managers and policy makers’ best quantify the

benefits, costs and impacts of efficient agricultural

water management practices so that it is possible

to assess accurately whether such strategies

deliver improved productivity and effect savings

and wealth accumulation at household and

community levels

Land issues

Effect of urban development on prime agricultural

areas/land and aspects related to farmers’ rights

and urban farming

Understanding of gender, land tenure systems and

implications on productivity/degradation

Regional review of success cases on various

models of land management - conservancies

Innovative ways of arresting land sub-division and

fragmentation in the sub-region

Stimulate policy dialogue platforms

Ecosystems

Mapping of critical ecosystems and associated

potential and real services

Develop a robust methodology for quantifying,

pricing, incentivizing and impact assessment

(including modeling) of ecosystems services

Establish institutional instruments to support and

deliver market-based approaches to ecosystems

management – payment of ecosystem services

Quantify the tradeoffs between productivity and

ecosystem services

Characterize, promote the conservation and utilization

of pharmacologically active biota in natural

ecosystems

Expected development results

Improvement in food security, nutrition and health

Increase in household income

Diversified cropping and livelihood options

Enhanced farm and household resilience towards

climate variability & change

Enhanced productivity of key ecosystems

Thank you