Fire is a primary cause of desertification in the Sahel region of North Africa, where the degradation of drylands is especially pronounced. The degradation of drylands in Africa is forcing people who can no longer make a living off the land to move to urban areas.

Land degradation and desertification can affect human health through complex pathways. As land is degraded and deserts expand in some places, food production is reduced, water sources dry up and populations are pressured to move to more hospitable areas.

The degradation of drylands in Africa is forcing people who can no longer make a living off the land to move to urban areas. According to the UN Population Division, the population of Lagos, Nigeria, will grow from 13.4 million in 2000 to 23.2 million in 2015, partly due to an influx of displaced rural communities.

To scale up measures against desertification, the Chinese government has also developed a National Action Programme to Combat Desertification by expanding protected areas and restoring overgrazed and marginal farmlands to their natural state.

2 Desertification in Kenya. Desertification is a major environmental and socio-economic problem, affecting about 80 % of Kenya. A total of 7–10 million inhabitants residing in this area suffer from widespread acute poverty and other adverse effects of drought.

“Rapid population growth is exacerbating the existing problems of imbalance between human numbers and available arable land – deforestation, inappropriate land use and farming practices,” the report said. “All these are among the major problems leading to food crises and desertification in Kenya.”

Primary rainforest loss in the Congo Basin more than doubled between the first and second half of the period from 2002 to 2019, according to satellite data analysis by Global Forest Watch, an initiative of the World Resources Institute.

According to the FAO, Nigeria has the world’s highest deforestation rate of primary forests. It has lost more than half of its primary forest in the last five years.