October 28 - 29, 2020.

Contribution of WOCAT to GLF sessions are under discussion. More information will follow.

WOCAT is collaborating with the EU-funded project on Land-use based Mitigation for Resilient Climate pathways (LANDMARC). The Project will answer the question about the realistic potential for agriculture, forestry, and other land use sectors to enhance the uptake of CO₂ from the atmosphere.

A recent paper in Global Environmental Change from a collaboration between the Stockholm Resilience Centre, WOCAT and the University of Florence, explores the global potential of SLM to increase crop production. It provides a new methodology based on global spatial data and the WOCAT database to support the out-scaling of existing, successful, documented SLM Technologies. The methodology is scalable and aims at supporting decision making on replication and transferability of SLM at a national to regional scale. Currently, the methodology is being applied to Uganda as a first national case study.

For the Evaluation Report Anna Tengberg (SIWI) assessed together with Cryton Zazu & Hanan Seid the impacts that WOCAT has achieved after more than 25 years of operation. A combination of methods was used, including documentation review, a questionnaire survey sent out to the entire network, semi-structured interviews with key informants, participation in the 19th global WOCAT Network Meeting in mid-May 2019, and field visits to four countries.

The lessons learnt and recommendations of this report have all been addressed and integrated in the development of the new WOCAT 2020+ strategy that will be launched by the end of this year.

Today, HE Vincent Bamulangaki Ssempijja, Minister for Agriculture, Animal Industry, Fisheries, Uganda, launched the 'SLM Collection from Northern Uganda and beyond' prepared by WOCAT partner Uganda Landcare Network (ULN) in collaboration with extension services and the National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO) with support from IFAD. The event took place during the Uganda Froum for Agriculture Advisory Services (UFAAS) national extension e-symposium 2020.

Learn about the benefits of good land management onsite and offsite with a series of videos, policy briefs and other materials from Haiti, Colombia, India and Iceland. SLM goes far beyond improving productivity of the land and benefitting land users – it is for the benefit of all.

In this new series, WOCAT partners share insights on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting land use, agriculture, and small farmers in their region. The short reports reveal the distinct ways that authorities and people on the ground in different settings are responding to a common threat.

From June 15-19, 2020 an online training on QGIS and the WOCAT watershed tool for 70 participants from Central Asian countries took place. This is part of a series of trainings in the framework of the GEF/FAO CACILM II project organized by WOCAT and partners to support countries in mapping land degradation and SLM.

In the week of 25 May 2020 almost 100 participants from Central Asia countries are participating in an online training course on the Carbon Benefits Project (CBP) Tools within the framework of the Central Asian Countries Initiative for Land Management (CACILM II) project. The training will allow participants to calculate carbon stocks and greenhouse gas emmissions associated with land management projects and report on the impacts of activities on climate change mitigation.