Building resilience in regreened landscapes through dynamic multi-stakeholder and multisectoral partnerships
Partner(s): World Agroforestry (ICRAF), World Vision (WV), Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), Oxfam, and Sahel Eco.
Type of Organization: Non-Governmental Organization
Country of Operation: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, and Somalia
Climate Adaptation Sector Thematic Area: Strengthen Coordination and Collaboration Between Member States
Activities
Over the last five years, the Regreening African programme has played a crucial role in restoring stability to regional communities whose livelihoods are dependent on healthy lands, by addressing land degradation and fostering climate resilience, through agroforestry. This initiative has built a dynamic multi-stakeholder partnership, which has bolstered transboundary adaptation efforts and successfully bridged the gap between science, policy and implementation at various scales. Through collaboration between governments, NGOs, local communities, research institutions, and other diverse stakeholders, Regreening Africa has been able to expand its geographic reach, scale its influence, and reflect on diverse experiences to address the challenges of land degradation, climate change, and food security. The production of co-created knowledge and the sharing of lessons learnt on climate resilience, value chain development, and sustainable land management, are invaluable for future interventions in Africa by all stakeholders.
Through the integration of technological innovations, community participation, collaborative learning, and adaptive strategies, Regreening Africa works to build community resilience in ‘regreened’ landscapes. The primary goal of this initiative is to expand ecosystem restoration and promote the adoption of locally suitable and sustainable agriculture practices. In addition, the programme builds collaborative efforts across its eight participating countries – Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia – equipping them with decision making and monitoring tools to reduce land degradation.
Regreening Africa’s partnership-driven model has played a crucial role in allowing for collaboration between global policy processes and regional, national, and local levels. A Regreening Africa consortium was established that comprises of international and national organisations, all tasked with scaling-up agroforestry and other land restoration practices. Each partner brought their unique skills, approaches, and networks to the programme. The NGOs, for example, offered an extensive network of technical support, while the research partners brought an enquiring perspective, data to determine progress and impact, and adapt implementation strategies and tactics if needed. Close coordination among the implementing consortium partners was important to ensure coherent and effective implementation. In addition, National Oversight and Coordination Committees, chaired by a senior government agency representative, ensured the strong linkage to policy and provided strategic advice.
This dynamic partnership model between communities, development actors, government, and research institutions, enabled the extensive scaling of contextually adapted practices, generated essential evidence, and facilitated the exchange of knowledge to enhance impact, and effectively influence policy. In addition, and importantly, Regreening Africa worked at a local scale with diverse farmers and land managers, actively addressing the engagement of women and youth, by leveraging and boosting the capacities of local cooperatives and community-based organisations, while sharing information through farmer-to-farmer approaches. Strongly building off these powerful local networks, the programme created robust linkages and synergies between implementation on the ground and continually adaptive technical support. At sub-national and national levels, Regreening Africa worked with a range of stakeholders to provide evidence suggesting useful policy and investment shifts and so helped usher in policy and institutional environments that enabled and facilitated the successful scaling of sustainable land management practices by and for communities.
This project is funded by the European Union. Partners include the World Agroforestry (ICRAF) was the lead research partner for the project. Other partners included World Vision (WV), Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), Oxfam, and Sahel Eco.
Regreening Africa has reversed land degradation among 607,088 households and across one million hectares in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, and Somalia. It has also built alternative income generation opportunities for many people. For example, tree farmers in Kenya’s Migori County have been trained on beekeeping, site selection, and hive management. They are now integrating bee farming within their tree-based restoration initiatives, helping to generate additional income and food sources. The Regreening Africa initiative places inclusivity at the forefront, actively involving local communities, especially marginalized groups like women, youth, and indigenous communities, in decision-making and capacity-building activities. It tailors its strategies to suit the specific requirements of each area, promoting fairness in the distribution of benefits and resources to enhance social equity. Ongoing monitoring and evaluation ensure that the project’s adaptability to the diverse community needs, with a core objective of empowering local stewardship and broadening resource access.
Regreening Africa provides important lessons on addressing the nexus of land degradation and poverty through its innovative approach, combining scientific research with indigenous knowledge, to establish an adaptive system for delivering better development outcomes. Its achievements can also be attributed to strategic investments in inclusion, working locally, movement building, research development, stakeholder engagement, and value chain engagement. In addition, this initiative has demonstrated that the convening of a range of partners with a diversity skill set, resources and capacities in different policy, research and implementation spaces, at multiple scales, can be transformative.
Climate Adaptation Activities
- Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration;
- Livelihood activities such as beekeeping, site selection, and hive management;
- Tree planting;
- Equitable natural resource use and distribution; and
- Land restoration.
Further information
Links to resources and information: https://regreeningafrica.org/