Desertification is a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. It is the spread of arid areas caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and overexploitation of soil as a result of human activity.
International development or global development is a broad concept denoting the idea that societies and countries have differing levels of economic or human development on an international scale. It is the basis for international classifications such as developed country, developing country and least developed country, and for a field of practice and research that in various ways engages with international development processes. There are, however, many schools of thought and conventions regarding which are the exact features constituting the "development" of a country.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 that had been established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. These were based on the OECD DAC International Development Goals agreed by Development Ministers in the "Shaping the 21st Century Strategy". The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) succeeded the MDGs in 2016.
World Water Day is an annual United Nations (UN) observance day held on 22 March that highlights the importance of fresh water. The day is used to advocate for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. The theme of each year focuses on topics relevant to clean water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), which is in line with the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 6. The UN World Water Development Report (WWDR) is released each year around World Water Day.
Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation, is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty.
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, often shortened to simply GIZ, is the main German development agency headquartered in Bonn and Eschborn that provides services in the field of international development cooperation and international education work. It is the organization's self-declared goal to deliver effective solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions.
The Great Green Wall or Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel is a project led by the African Union, initially conceived as a way to combat desertification in the Sahel region and hold back expansion of the Sahara, by planting a wall of trees stretching across the entire Sahel. The modern green wall has since evolved into a program promoting water harvesting techniques, greenery protection and improving indigenous land use techniques, aimed at creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across North Africa.
Water scarcity is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity: physical or economic water scarcity. Physical water scarcity is where there is not enough water to meet all demands, including that needed for ecosystems to function effectively. Arid areas for example Central and West Asia, and North Africa often suffer from physical water scarcity. On the other hand, economic water scarcity is caused by a lack of investment in infrastructure or technology to draw water from rivers, aquifers, or other water sources, or insufficient human capacity to satisfy the demand for water. Much of Sub-Saharan Africa has economic water scarcity.
Water supply and sanitation in Yemen is characterized by many challenges as well as some achievements. A key challenge is severe water scarcity, especially in the Highlands, prompting The Times of London to write "Yemen could become the first nation to run out of water". A second key challenge is a high level of poverty, making it very difficult to recover the costs of service provision. Access to water supply sanitation in Yemen is as low or even lower than that in many sub-Saharan African countries. Yemen is both the poorest country and the most water-scarce country in the Arab world. Third, the capacity of sector institutions to plan, build, operate and maintain infrastructure remains limited. Last but not least the security situation makes it even more difficult to improve or even maintain existing levels of service.
Drinking water supply and sanitation in Benin has been subject to considerable progress since the 1990s, in particular in rural areas, where coverage is higher than in many other African countries, and almost all development partners follow a national demand-responsive strategy, which has been adopted in 1992. New strategies to increase water supply in rural and urban areas have been adopted in 2005 and 2006. Tariffs in urban and rural areas are usually high enough to cover the costs for operation and maintenance.
Water security is the basic goal of water policy and water management. A society with a high level of water security makes the most of water's benefits for humans and ecosystems and limits the risk of destructive impacts associated with water. These include too much water (flood), too little water or poor quality (polluted) water. A widely accepted definition of water security is: "Water security is the reliable availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks". Water security is framed as a situation where water-related risks are managed and water-related opportunities are captured but it is difficult to provide a set of indicators to quantify this.
Soil governance refers to the policies, strategies, and the processes of decision-making employed by nation states and local governments regarding the use of soil. Globally, governance of the soil has been limited to an agricultural perspective due to increased food insecurity from the most populated regions on earth. The Global Soil Partnership, GSP, was initiated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its members with the hope to improve governance of the limited soil resources of the planet in order to guarantee healthy and productive soils for a food-secure world, as well as support other essential ecosystem services.
The water, energy and food security nexus according to the Food And Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), means that water security, energy security and food security are very much linked to one another, meaning that the actions in any one particular area often can have effects in one or both of the other areas.
Tanzania has a current population of 55.57 million people. Current statistics form the World Bank show that in 2011, 49.1% of Tanzanians lived below US$1.90 per day. This figure is an improvement over 2007's report indicating a poverty rate of 55.1%. Tanzania has seen annual GDP gains of 7% since 2010 and this economic growth is attributed to this positive trends for poverty alleviation in Tanzania. The 2019 World Bank report showed that in the last 10 years, poverty has reduced by 8 percent, from 34.4% in 2007 to 26.4% in 2018.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future". The SDGs were set up in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly (UN-GA) and are intended to be achieved by 2030. They are included in a UN-GA Resolution called the 2030 Agenda or what is colloquially known as Agenda 2030. The SDGs were developed in the Post-2015 Development Agenda as the future global development framework to succeed the Millennium Development Goals which were ended in 2015. The SDGs emphasize the interconnected environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable development, by putting sustainability at their center.
The Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) was a national five-year plan created by the Ethiopian government to improve the country's economy by achieving a projected gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 11-15% per year from 2010 to 2015. The plan included details of the cost and specific targets the government expects to hit by pursuing the following objectives.
Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than US$2.50 purchasing power parity. Uganda has made significant progress in eradicating poverty and achieved the first millennium development goal of halving the number of people in extreme poverty. Uganda was listed as the 9th most successful country in Africa as regards poverty eradication. The percentage of Ugandans living in absolute poverty has been on a substantial decline, and the finance ministry in the country projected that the extreme poverty level will be reduced to 10% in the future. This success has been attributed to the deliberate efforts to combat poverty in the country by numerous national strategies that are explained below.
Water in Africa is an important issue encompassing the sources, distribution and economic uses of the water resources on the continent. Overall, Africa has about 9% of the world's fresh water resources and 16% of the world's population. Among its rivers are the Congo, Nile, Zambezi, Niger and Lake Victoria, considered the world’s second largest lake. Yet the continent is the second driest in the world, with millions of Africans still suffering from water shortages throughout the year.
Sustainable Development Goal 15 is about "Life on land." One of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015, the official wording is: "Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss". The Goal has 12 targets to be achieved by 2030. Progress towards targets will be measured by 14 indicators.
Sustainable Development Goals and Lebanon explains major contributions launched in Lebanon towards the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs and the 2030 agenda. Multi-stakeholder forums were held by different UN agencies including the UN Global Compact Network in Lebanon during the late 2010s for the advancement of Global Goals and their Impact on Businesses in Lebanon. The latest two were held on October 18, 2018 and October 2019 under the title of connecting the global goals to Local Businesses.
