Digital edition: Africa 2021

The world has experienced severe land degradation due to deforestation, climate change, drought, desertification and unsustainable land uses. Consequently, the productivity and health of farmlands, grazing lands and forests is damaged, which in turn harms the individuals and communities who depend on these resources for their food supply, health and income. As a result, many rural populations in the developing world suffer from malnutrition, loss of opportunity, increased vulnerability and poverty. Migration increases as workers move away to earn a living, which can also lead to family fragmentation and increased potential for conflict. This is not a safe or sustainable future for rural communities. Nor does it help the growth of nations reliant on primary industries, such as agriculture.

But this is changing. Communities across the world are transforming their lives and reshaping their lands through a low-cost, simple and sustainable land regeneration practice called Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). Through FMNR and their own efforts, communities can restore degraded lands to productivity relatively quickly and efficiently. FMNR has proven its potential in mobilizing and empowering local communities to restore their natural environment and consequently building resilience – of people, their lands and their livelihoods.
Join Tony Rinaudo (World Vision Senior Climate Action Advisor, pioneer of FMNR and Right Livelihood Award Laureate, 2018) and Irene Ojuok (Right Livelihood College PhD student at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) and Global Evergreening Ambassador) as they speak on the FMNR approach from a global and Kenyan perspective.

Read more: White Paper 

L’édition française de la revue internationale des forêts et des industries forestières, Unasylva, «Restaurer la Terre – la décennie à venir» sera lancée à GLF Afrique. La revue se consacre à la création d’une dynamique pour le programme de restauration à l’horizon 2030, en particulier vu les opportunités qu’offrent les principaux engagements de restauration tels que le Défi de Bonn (Bonn Challenge), la Déclaration de New York sur les forêts, l’AFR100, l’Initiative 20 × 20 et la La Décennie des Nations unies pour la restauration des écosystèmes 2021-2030.

Le journal Unasylva, créé en 1947, est le plus ancien périodique de la FAO. Il vise à informer une large gamme de lecteurs sur d’importants développements mondiaux dans le domaine de la foresterie et met en avant une diversité d’auteurs venant de partout sur la planète et d’un éventail de secteurs et d’institutions.

Lors du lancement d’Unasylva 252, des panélistes de la société civile, d’organisations internationales et de gouvernements nationaux vont partager sur le processus participatif qui a conduit à la création de l’édition; souligner les conclusions importantes de l’édition; sensibiliser aux opportunités associées à la restauration et à la Décennie des Nations Unies; et souligner le dynamisme des efforts de restauration au niveau mondial.

Restoring the Earth – The next decade

The French edition of the international forestry journal Unasylva, “Restoring the Earth – The next decade” is being launched at GLF Africa. The journal is devoted to building momentum for the restoration agenda to 2030, particularly in light of the opportunities presented by major restoration commitments such as the Bonn Challenge, the New York Declaration on Forests, AFR100, Initiative 20×20 and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030.

The Unasylva journal, established in 1947, is the UN FAO’s longest-running periodical. It aims to bring globally-significant developments in forestry to a broad range of readers, and features contributors from across the planet and from a range of sectors and institutions.

At the launch of Unasylva 252, panelists from civil society, international organizations and national governments will share stories of the participatory process that lead to the edition’s creation; highlight important findings of the edition; raise awareness around the opportunities associated with restoration and the UN Decade; and emphasize the vibrancy of restoration efforts at the global level.

This launchpad will be in French with English translation.

The focus of this GLF launchpad event is to highlight the critical importance of genebanks in Africa, their role in ensuring food security, and the challenges they currently face. COVID-19 has exposed how vulnerable and interconnected we are. Without international cooperation, effective safeguarding of plant genetic resources to secure the world’s food supply is simply not possible.

Genebanks are full of untapped potential in the incredible wealth of crop diversity they hold, and many are unable to live up to their promise due to an array of challenges, including being under-resourced. By making seeds available to breeders and farmers to develop and use crop varieties adapted to current and future climates, genebanks are fundamental in combatting the effects of climate change and are of critical importance for sustainable farming and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Using crop varieties that are nutrient-rich, tolerant to environmental stresses like drought and extreme heat, and are resistant to pests and diseases helps smallholder farmers to ensure their food security while putting less pressure on fragile ecosystems. And these varieties are essential factors in securing future food and nutrition across the continent.

A supportive policy environment must be built across the African continent to accelerate the collective movement for dryland restoration.

This plenary will call for a policy agenda to shape and meet the ambition of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration from the start. By offering a deep dive into governance and exploring the role of local and national governments as well as citizens and the private sector, this session will provide a vision for policy coherence across sectors and scales. Join this call to action for a shift from designing policies to concretely implementing policies that make restoration work for all.

Restoring Africa’s drylands is a major economic opportunity: Every $1 invested can lead to $7-30 in economic benefits. Recognizing that opportunity, investors have committed more than $15 billion to AFR100 and the Great Green Wall through 2030. Now, billions of those dollars need to be directly invested in entrepreneurs and community organizations with the necessary long-term vision, local knowledge, and technical expertise to transform Africa’s drylands.

Join World Resources Institute (WRI) for a conversation with three private investors and the leaders of restoration projects that they have funded. Together, we will unpack how #GenerationRestoration can turn inspiring ideas into action on the ground.

Degraded landscapes threaten the livelihood of the majority of rural populations. In years of implementing landscape restoration activities, it has become clear that embedding the interventions in the local communities is essential to the sustainability and success of such initiatives. A comprehensive participation of local stakeholders in the planning and implementation processes have a great potential to empower local structures and communities, especially women and youth, and become an irreplaceable core of ecosystem restoration.

GIZ and partners from its Forests4Future and Large-scale Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) in Africa programme will showcase how initiatives such as the AFR100 and international FLR programs for restoring degraded landscapes must use this potential!

Read more: White Paper 

Protracted crises are persistent in Africa’s drylands. Weak governance, insecure land rights and access, environmental fragility and armed conflict impact the lives of millions of pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and farmers in drylands across Africa; climate change is starting to layer on additional stress. SPARC research with pastoral and agro-pastoral communities across the Sahel and Horn of Africa reveals how they are responding to multiple pressures and adapting their livelihoods. Innovations emerging from these regions are also providing solutions to some of their most critical challenges. In this plenary, we will discuss some of the opportunities and challenges when taking a more integrated approach to addressing ecosystem restoration in drylands facing recurrent and protracted crises.

Contact SPARC directly for more information: enquiries@sparc-knowledge.org 

Learn more about SPARC: https://www.sparc-knowledge.org/ 

Share innovations with SPARC:  https://forms.gle/Suhi9KojGgEs7zsNA

This plenary will set the foundation for aligning the UN Decade on Ecosystems Restoration and the UN Food Systems Summit. Restoration and rehabilitation of degraded land is one of the focal areas for Action Track 3 “Boosting nature positive production”. Bringing together decision makers from African countries, farmers, scientists, civil society and donors, the plenary will discuss synergies and deliver joint action for African Dryland Restoration. With key partners, the plenary will explore linking the UN Food Systems Summit’s game-changing solutions on restoration with the targets of the UN Decade, identifying communalities and opportunities for collaboration, and strengthening the importance of restoration in the context of food security for Africa’s drylands.

This Opening Plenary will frame and define the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration through the African perspective. Join leading figures as they celebrate Africa’s drylands and lay out their vision for ecosystem restoration. A series of keynote speeches, interspersed by an inter-generational dialogue, will be followed by a discussion with experts who will reflect on how ecosystem restoration can be achieved from the ground up.

This plenary will showcase successful restoration practices and the women and men that are practicing them in the drylands. The plenary will illustrate a suite of restoration practices applied across heterogenous contexts in a participatory manner with involvement of women, men, youth and their respective organizations.

Stories will be heard from Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Niger. Approaches to building grassroots movements will be highlighted; scaling and deepening learnings on restoration from farmer/household decision making all the way to local institution formation in leading local movements via faith-based groups, farmer cooperatives, women saving groups and community based organizations.