E OF THE ASSIGNMENT:
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and building pathways to resilience, stability and sustainable food systems for people affected by conflict, climate shocks and environmental degradation.
Across Eastern and Southern Africa , climate variability, advancing land degradation and chronic water scarcity continue to erode the foundations of rural livelihoods and food security outcomes—particularly in drylands, where arid and semi‑arid landscapes are highly exposed to climate shocks and where food insecurity is recurring. Degraded ecosystems, weak watershed management and insufficient community infrastructure reduce the capacity of households and local institutions to absorb shocks and recover sustainably. These pressures disproportionately affect food-insecure populations, including women, and pastoral communities, whose food security depend directly on fragile natural resources.
Yet degraded land, and drylands in particular, also hold significant potential. With the right investments in land restoration, water harvesting, and community infrastructure, these landscapes can recover rapidly, rebuild productive capacity, strengthen food and nutrition security, and generate inclusive livelihood opportunities. WFP’s resilience programming leverages this potential to transform vulnerability into long-term, climate-smart development gains, with the objective of reducing acute food i
