Woody Weeds Plus

-    County governments and the respective Community Based Organisations that champion the implementation of the national strategy; 

-    The new Centre of Excellence for Prosopis management.

Indirect: livelihoods of pastoralist and agro-pastoralist.

1.    Prosopis management is integrated in land use planning and government, ecosystem restoration, and rural development efforts; 

2.    Awareness about sustainable Prosopis management and land restoration is enhanced and leads to tangible behaviour change in land use and governance; 

3.    Implementation of Prosopis management is accelerating in a strategically coordinated way;

4.    The bankability of sustainable Prosopis management is demonstrated.

Resultados previstos:  

Establish Prosopis  management involving leadership of Community Based Organisations, county authorities and central government:

-    Dedicated multi-sector Prosopis Management Units are established and functional at county level. County governments adapt national strategy to local context;

-    Prosopis Management is adopted as key function of society rooted Natural Resource Management organisations;

-    Relevant technologies and approaches are made accessible on global WOCAT and Plantwise open access databases;

-    The farmbetter mobile app is adapted to enable land users to select most appropriate management practices;

-    Extension agents and other frontline actors trained to effectively support land users with Prosopis management;

-    Monitoring protocol established and indicators identifies for invasion cover change; 

-    A national Prosopis fund is established through publicprivate partnership.

Resultados de las fases anteriores:  

Findings of the ‘Research for Development’ research project “Woody Weeds” funded by Swiss National Science Foundation and SDC (2015-2020):

a)    30% of the land use/land cover has changed due to exponential increase in Prosopis invasions in the last 18 years;

b)    Utilization of Prosopis as a resource (firewood) has not worked as a method of management and control. Sustainable management has to be addressed in a holistic manner;

c)    Prosopis has caused significant impacts on various indicators of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, including plant species richness, herbaceous biomass, invertebrate abundance as well as soil parameters. It also affects numerous ecosystem services. While it increases availability of wood, it decreases the availability of fodder for livestock, of natural enemies of invertebrate crop pests, of medicinal plants and of water; 

d)    Individual Prosopis trees consume between 1-20 litres of water per day, which is potentially more than half of the total amount of annual rainfall received in the invaded area. Livestock numbers have also reduced significantly with increased Prosopis cover in all the study areas.

The generated results of this project can leverage synergies to the following projects in the Horn of Africa programme working in arid and semi-arid lands: ‘FCDC-ASAL’, ‘K-Rapid’, ‘SDR-SNRS’, ‘HEAL’, ‘NRM-Borena’, ‘IGAD land governance’;

Other GPFS projects: Plantwise and WOCAT