Up to 30 million people depend on the Zambezi river basin ecosystem for goods and services, including for fish, forests, water and rich floodplain soils for agriculture. Erratic rainfall and increased cycles of droughts and floods, exacerbated by largescale deforestation, have, however, revealed interlinked social and environmental threats that directly affect agriculture and food systems, the main source of livelihoods for communities in the region, and the need to solve those issues concurrently.

In response, through this project, UNEP carried out field demonstrations to build the capacities of local communities in three countries in southern Africa and to showcase applicable, effective and innovative ecosystem-based adaptation approaches for food security practices. A total of seven pilot demonstration models were concluded in those countries. UNEP sought to demonstrate the efficacy of ecosystem-based adaptation approaches as a solution for addressing priority challenges shared in the target countries, namely, food insecurity, poverty, climate vulnerability and ecosystem degradation.

As a result, project products utilizing ecosystem-based adaptation techniques were integrated into environment and food security policies in the countries to drive their longer-term development trajectories. The relevance of the project beyond the three target countries was demonstrated through the adoption by ministers of the environment of African countries of a policy implementation framework for action, the Ecosystem-based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly, to scale up the project outputs across Africa. The framework was endorsed by the highest level policy organs on the continent, the African Union and the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, and is being integrated nationally by States members of the Conference. Lessons from the three project countries are being replicated and scaled up across the continent in up to 40 countries, representing more than a tenfold return on investment.