KAMPALA
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an East Africa trade bloc, is seeking to boost a 2003 resilient drought initiative aimed at ending drought emergencies in the region.
"The initiative will help rediscover the true value of the region's resources and opportunities for production," IGAD Executive Secretary Mahboub Maalim told a Tuesday steering committee meeting devoted to drought resilience and sustainability.
"We have to look at a regional approach and engage all the countries to promote, facilitate and support drought resilience and sustainability," he added.
Maalim underlined the need to establish new sources of income to reduce dependency on the land for sustenance and devise means of sustainable harvesting of forest resources.
The Drought, Disaster and Sustainability Initiative is a 15-year strategy launched in 2013 aimed at fighting drought through increased investment and through linking humanitarian assistance with development assistance.
It is being funded by IGAD member countries under the auspices of several donors, including the World Bank, the African Development Bank and Germany.
Africa's last devastating drought occurred in 2010/11.
According to the IGAD official, 70 percent of the IGAD region is arid, with the desert threatening to encroach on remaining patches of green in the Ethiopian Highlands and in parts of Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda.
He noted that, in the past, arid and semi-arid land was regarded largely as unproductive wasteland and attracted little or no interest or investment from the private and public sectors.
Mahboub noted that the contribution of livestock and livestock products – the predominant system of livelihood in arid and semi-arid land in the IGAD region – to the agricultural gross domestic product was frequently underestimated.
He said this tended to obscure the region and the livestock sector from the political limelight that usually inspires government support.
"This undermines the region's potential for enhanced productivity and progress," he noted.
IGAD's draught summit kicked off in Kampala on Monday and will continue until Friday.
It is expected to serve as an opportunity to review progress made since the 2011 Nairobi draught summit, discuss possible ways forward and reaffirm the commitment to end drought emergencies in the region.
IGAD leaders to meet in Uganda on March 27
The heads of Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) member states will hold a summit meeting in Uganda on March 27.
Talks will focus on development in Africa and ways of ending drought on the continent, an African diplomat told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday.
IGAD leaders will also discuss the situation in South Sudan, which has been shaken by violence since mid-December when President Salva Kiir accused his sacked vice president, Riek Machar, of staging a failed coup.
IGAD, an East African trade bloc, has been mediating talks between South Sudan's warring rivals in an effort to resolve the ongoing crisis in the world's youngest country.
The IGAD region – which covers Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan – has an estimated 214 million people.
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