Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) is a multi-Sectoral (Environment, Agriculture and Water Resources) and Multi-Institutional (Federal, State, Local Governments and Communities) Project. Therefore, extensive participatory stakeholder consultations will be fundamental to increase participation, buy-in, support, ownership, and awareness of the project, and to help identify issues, challenges, and opportunities to explore alternative scenarios (e.g., climate, investment paradigms). This will develop a longer-term vision and translate this to support decisions embedded into strategic action plans for the project and beyond.

All stakeholders will be involved and reached, there is an agreement across states with federal inputs along with a shared agreed vision across sectors (especially water resources, environment, and agriculture) to facilitate investment rollout.
Stakeholders’ engagement is at the core of the project design. The project will finance participatory management planning to restore degraded landscapes and protect environmental services and critical water supplies.

The project, through the various activities aims for:  increased restoration of degraded lands, reduced desertification in northern Nigeria, increased water availability, lessened rural poverty, and  effective and efficient adaptation of participating States and communities to a changing climate. The sustainability of the project investments depends on three pillars: I, local support for sustaining and maintaining investments (requiring rigorous design and screening of prospective investments based on sustainability criteria), ii, solidification of a long-term program in Nigeria to comprehensively tackle climate change and dryland management challenges, and, most difficult, iii, adequately addressing constraints to achieving project results that are beyond the scope of the project.

Engagement with Stakeholders (Authorizing Environments, Law makers, Ministries Department and Agencies (MDAs at both Federal and state government levels), Local Government Authorities, Traditional Rulers, communities, including the vulnerable groups, Media, Non-Governmental Organization, Community Based Organization, etc.,) will take place throughout the life cycle of the project.

The project engagement strategy defines who should participate in various levels of activities for building and maintaining positive relationships. The engagement will provide balanced and objective information to enable people to understand the project objectives, and their roles towards the project success and sustainability. Depending on the level of participation required and the level of engagement required, different methods and techniques would apply.