MARRAKECH, Morocco (PAMACC News) - Climate experts and development partners at the ongoing summit on climate change in Marrakech, Morocco have said that the world needs an integrated approach for climate resilience, and landscape management in order to feed the ever increasing global population.

Speaking at an event alongside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 22nd session of the Conference of Parties (COP 22) on climate change, Rawleston Moore of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) said there is need to sustain ecosystem service flows by ensuring healthy soils and vegetative cover,  need to diversify land use so that farmers have options in production systems, and also need to safeguard high value species to ensure availability of adaptive genetic resources for food, fuel and fiber.

“For the world to remain climate resilient, there is also need to preserve local traditional indigenous knowledge in an integrated approach,” said Moore, the Senior Climate Change Specialist for Adaptation at the GEF.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) the world population is expected to grow by over a third, or 2.3 billion people, between 2009 and 2050, with nearly all the growth taking place in the developing countries.

These trends, according to FAO, mean that market demand for food would continue to grow. Demand for cereals for example, for both food and animal feeds is projected to reach some 3 billion tonnes by 2050, up from today’s nearly 2.1 billion tonnes.

Amid the changing climatic conditions, experts have warned that without extra effort and innovative means of adaptation and food production, there will be a huge food deficit in the near future.

As a result, the GEF has released some $120 through Islamic Development Bank to support food security programmes in 12 African countries.

“Projects have been initiated in different African countries, and am very happy that people’s livelihoods have changed for the better,” said Dr Bashir Jama Adan, the Manager, Agriculture and Food Security Division at the Islamic Development Bank. “Those who depended on food aid can now feed themselves, and people are able to generate income from simple climate resilience projects,” he added.

According to Ketty Lamaro, the Under Secretary Department of Pacification and Development in the Office of Uganda’s Prime Minister, dryland food production projects in Northern Uganda have restored peace in areas such as Karamoja, where households who solely depended on pastoralism can now cultivate food as an alternative way of survival.

However, for communities to respond well to climate resilience programmes, Moore said that there must be political goodwill.

“We need policies to promote incentive mechanisms for good practices that deliver environment and development benefits at scale,” he said.

The Islamic Development Bank provides interest-free financing to vulnerable communities, where profits are shares equitably with the beneficiaries, and losses shared if at all they occur.