The drylands of Africa are fragile ecosystems with rampant land degradation and desertification arising primarily from unsustainable human land use activities, such as over-grazing and over-cutting of vegetation. Internal factors such as high poverty levels and poor natural resource governance and policies have fueled these stressors, enhancing their impacts. The impacts of climate change further aggravate this situation, increasing the vulnerability of ecosystems and their populations beyond traditional coping strategies. This situation calls for innovative adaptation strategies to improve the resilience of dryland ecosystems and populations. This chapter reviews the various adaptation options implemented for restoration programs in the African drylands to evaluate their successes and challenges. It finds that African governments have implemented continental strategies, such as the Great Green Wall (GGW), the AFRI100 Forest Landscape restoration program, and other national initiatives, with mixed results. It further finds that simple community-led restoration practices have better chances of success and should be up-scaled. It proposes policy reforms to anchor the mainstreaming of such proven processes. Most of the initiatives have adopted sectoral approaches, even though some can be said to be systemic. The chapter recommends the adoption of an ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) as the most appropriate strategy for restoration in the drylands, due to its ability to holistically deliver ecosystem, community, and climate change resilience. EbA has various approaches that enhance adoption flexibility. It makes good governance, benefit sharing, and stakeholder participation central to restoration processes, thereby supporting sustainability.