The Initiative on Sustainability, Stability and Security?(3S) was launched by the Governments of Morocco and Senegal at the 22nd?Session of the Conference of the Parties?(COP22) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change?(UNFCCC) in 2016. That same year, it was endorsed by the Heads of State and Government at the first African Action Summit in Morocco to promote climate resilience and youth employment in rural areas. Through South-South cooperation, Morocco shares value, knowledge, skills, expertise and resources. The country contributes to the 3S?Initiative to create jobs for youth, women and migrants by restoring degraded land. To address this triple threat, a number of countries have joined the Initiative. Participants include Benin, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Chad, The Gambia, Ghana, Mali, the Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, the Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

Within five years of implementation, the Initiative aims to commit the financial resources necessary to restore 10?million hectares of degraded lands, primarily in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa, through investment, policy reforms and technical and financial innovation. Achieving this goal will have an economic impact, as it will help to sustain and create 2?million land-based jobs. This includes existing jobs at risk of being lost due to climate change and new jobs that will be created as a result of reversing land degradation. The final outcome of the Initiative will be reduced migration, as people choose to remain on their lands rather than moving away for economic reasons or falling prey to radicalized groups. 

To achieve these goals, the Initiative is designed to provide vital rural investment in land restoration and sustainable land management in the most fragile areas and communities experiencing desertification and drought. Second, it will address the required economic policy changes, including the development of policies and measures to strengthen access to land through temporary land usage rights and permanent land tenure in rural and fragile areas, with a focus on vulnerable groups such as women, indigenous people and youth. Policies must also be developed to facilitate private investment in agriculture and forestry. Finally, it will promote innovative technical and financial solutions. In land restoration, new cost-effective technologies involve carbon sequestration, biodiversity protection, the use of windbreaks and water resource conservation. These innovations are deployed on a pilot basis and scaled up when proven effective, thereby contributing to their commercialization and market acceptance by investors in agriculture and forestry in Africa. 

The Initiative draws on multiple implementing partners, depending on a project’s location and types of activities. Financial contributors include public donors, such as the Government of Turkey through the Ankara Initiative and the Directorate–General for Development Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy. Private investors and commercial lenders also contribute to the Initiative. Implementing partners include African Governments (ministries of environment), regional and local authorities, bilateral donor agencies, non-governmental organizations, multilateral institutions and private enterprises. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification is coordinating the activities of the Secretariat, including resource mobilization, communication and Steering Committee meetings. At the country level, the Initiative will be implemented by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).  

The 3S?Initiative takes a programmatic approach and employs a thematic focus to address climate change and land degradation, as well as a geographic focus to help harmonize policies and interventions across Africa. It supports a set of projects that are linked under a common mechanism, which allows for the approval of individual projects unified by an overarching mission and a contribution to mutually agreed goals. 

The Initiative also ensures country ownership of the supported activities, as projects are aligned with national development strategies. Moreover, project identification and development involve local populations in targeted rural areas, and projects are implemented using community-led development approaches. 

The governance structure involves a development partnership among all stakeholders, which requires long-term commitments, defined expectations and shared responsibilities in order to be successful. The partnership approach values the unique strengths of all partners and is based upon open, accountable and transparent cooperation.  

The Initiative follows a demand-driven approach. At the strategic level, each African country develops a national or subnational strategy to guide the project’s implementation in order to define programmatic priorities with the involvement of stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector. These national strategies will be harmonized with and integrated into the assistance strategies of the hosting multilateral development bank. This will ensure that interventions of significant scale can be developed, appraised and implemented swiftly, in close coordination with national, regional and local authorities in beneficiary countries. For example, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), as a technical partner, has launched a community stabilization project in the Niger to support the Government and civil society in integrating migrants and creating jobs related to the restoration of degraded lands and their productive base. The project utilizes an inclusive approach to engage all community members, and participants are selected by a designated committee of local leaders. IOM staff in the Niger provide training and assist the participants in determining how to make full use of the given plots of land and choosing appropriate plants to grow. 

In the current phase, the Initiative is developing its financial mechanism at IFAD. Projects on the ground are expected to be financed from 2021. For the Moroccan Government, the 3S?Initiative serves as an important example of the role of triangular cooperation in resource mobilization. South-South cooperation activities in the field of sustainable land management, land restoration and climate change adaptation will be adopted across 3S?countries once the Initiative is implemented by IFAD. 

Institutionally, the 3S?Initiative is anchored within the forthcoming IFAD Rural Resilience Programme and supported through the trust fund arrangements pending approval by the IFAD Executive Board in September?2020. The Programme is a global umbrella programme that primarily consolidates climate change and environmental funds to increase the resilience of small-scale producers, working in concert with IFAD country programme strategies and loans and grants. The Rural Resilience Programme will channel climate and environmental finance to smallholder farmers by incorporating the 3S?Initiative and the successor to the IFAD flagship initiative Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme. 

The delivery of individual projects supported by the 3S Initiative will follow IFAD operational policies and procedures and will go through the IFAD network of regional and country offices on the African continent. IFAD may draw on implementing partners with proven thematic expertise in the region, such as the African Union Development Agency. To design and implement programmes, multilateral institutions will involve relevant country ministries, private enterprises, academia and civil society, including youth, women and rural communities, thereby ensuring sound ownership of economic development policies and investment programmes at the local, national and regional levels. 

IFAD will use a unified results measurement framework to evaluate the 3S?Initiative in Africa. For each objective of the 3S?Initiative, the results framework will provide a measurable indicator that will have a baseline established at the beginning of an individual project, an intended target value upon completion of a project and a current value measuring the actual achievement of the targeted output. Indicators of this results framework will feed into progress measurement and impact reporting by IFAD on the overall results related to the Rural Resilience Programme. 

The sustainability of this Initiative has been demonstrated by firm commitments to implement projects made at the highest political level by participating countries. The Initiative is closely aligned with several Sustainable Development Goals?(SDGs), including SDG?8 on decent work and economic growth, SDG?13 on climate action, SDG?15 on life on land and SDG?17 on partnerships.