Project Information Document - Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) - P175237 (English)

Inaction (business-as-usual) could cost the country an estimated 2 to 11 percent of GDP by 2020 and between 6 and 30 percent by 2050, affecting the livelihoods of millions of households.5 Other substantial climate-driven impacts include more frequent and harsher torrential rains and windstorms in the southern states in recent years than in the past 40 years; major floods in 2012, 2015, and 2016; a [...] Because of Nigeria’s vulnerability to oil price shocks, with the sharp fall in oil prices as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, the economy contracted by 1.8 percent in 2020, and consolidated government revenues fell from 8.2 percent of GDP in 2019 to 6.5 percent of GDP in 2020, at a time when fiscal resources were urgently needed to contain the outbreak and initiate counter-cyclical and pro-poor fi [...] The response has focused on containing the outbreak, marshaling the needed fiscal resources in the face of severe fiscal constraints, and taking steps to mitigate the adverse impact of the economic downturn by reprioritizing federal and state government spending and protecting social expenditures. [...] Eighty percent of the land in the 20 states in the center and northern part of the country is agricultural land (57 percent cropland and 23 percent grassland). [...] The Government of Nigeria has established several initiatives in the agriculture sector to combat desertification including afforestation and reforestation programs, dissemination of proven agricultural technologies and sustainable agricultural practices, and promotion of efficient energy sources.16 Efforts to stop and reverse desertification are complicated by the need to feed a rapidly increasin