Africa faces a myriad of hurdles on its way to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the post-2015 development agenda. Climate change, population growth, youth bulge, widespread unemployment, extreme poverty and hunger are some of the challenges that the continent is grappling with. Africa’s agricultural potential is immense.

This issues paper firstly analyzes the vicious spiral between climate change impacts, ecosystem degradation and increased risk of climate-related disasters; secondly, defines the central role of ecosystem management in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction and their multifaceted linkages; and thirdly, assesses the challenges for enhanced ecosystem management for climate change adap