October 2016: Participants to the First Regional Conference of the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), a country-led effort to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land in Africa by 2030, discussed how to overcome barriers to implementing and scaling up forest landscape restoration (FLR) in AFR100 partner countries, including awareness raising, FLR planning, multi-sector partnerships and priorities for financial and technical assistance.

Organized by the New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) Agency, World Bank, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the German Ministry for Technical Cooperation (BMZ), the Conference served as an inaugurating event for the AFR100 partnership. To date, 21 African countries have committed to restoring 63.3 million hectares of forest under the partnership.

To date, 21 African countries have committed to restoring 63.3 million hectares of forest under the partnership.

The Conference brought together the focal points of participating countries to discuss FLR activities already underway and the support needed to scale up these activities to achieve the AFR100 commitment. According to a blog post published by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), a member of the CGIAR Consortium, speakers at the conference highlighted, among other actions, the need for: each country to develop its own long-term FLR plan; securing financing from multiple donors and sectors; collaborative approaches that break down inter-sectoral barriers; aligning rural policies; and involving stakeholders and responding to community needs.

A related ICRAF blog post discusses financing needs for scalable FLR business models to achieve AFR100. The article notes that FLR partners have committed more than US$1.5 billion, including US$1 billion by the World Bank and US$540 million in private sector impact investment. The post describes emerging initiatives that channel grant money to communities and develop business models to support FLR at the community level. It underscores that new models of accessing financing and providing farmers with credit will be needed to develop sustainable FLR business models.

AFR100 was launched during the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference as a country-led initiative contributing to the Bonn Challenge, a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of the world’s forests and degraded lands by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. The initiatives facilitate partnerships to restore deforested and degraded landscapes with a view to improving livelihoods. The First Regional Conference for AFR100 was held 11-12 October 2016 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. [NEPAD Press Release] [ICRAF Blog on Regional Conference] [ICRAF Blog on Financing for AFR100] [WRI AFR100 Website] [AFR100 Infographic] [Bonn Challenge Website]