GOAL: Strengthen grassroots capacity for locally-led landscape-level sustainable rural development in Africa.

27 Sub-Saharan African countries have pledged to restore, or begin the process of restoring, over 96 million hectares of degraded land on the continent by 2030. 40 SSA countries include climate change mitigation from Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry in their (intended) Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the Paris Climate Accord. 34 NDCs include mitigation contributions from agriculture. Every African nation has signed on to the Sustainable Development Goals. The question now asked regularly: how will our countries keep these commitments?

And more to the point, how will our countries keep these commitments while facing rising population pressure on fragile resources, increasing food demand for that growing population, the requirements on natural resources for new employment opportunities, and the environmental service demands of rapidly growing urban centers?

As national and international programs on sustainable land and water management, climate smart agriculture and land restoration grow, it is critical to empower and ensure the participation of African landscape leaders in the decision-making and execution of these initiatives. Focus has to be put on sustainable and inclusive development at the local level, which will require a massive investment in the capacity of African landscape leaders.

Program Themes

• Landscape convening and governance
• Climate smart landscapes planning and policy
• Business engagement, employment, and entrepreneurship for a green economy
• Wildlife and biodiversity in landscape management
• Landscape finance and investment
• Property rights and land use planning

This event is organized by the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative as a collaboration of its partners.

Co-organizing Partners include:

• African Centre for a Green Economy
• African Model Forest Network
• African Biodiversity Collaborative Group
• African Union Development Agency
• African Wildlife Foundation
• Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
• Conservation International
• Cornell University
• Fauna and Flora International
• Government of Germany (BMZ/GIZ)
• Government of the Netherlands (Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality)
• Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre & Network (HOARECN)
• Forest and Farm Facility
• National Land Use Planning Commission of Tanzania
• Nature Conservancy
• Netherlands National Committee of IUCN
• Rainforest Alliance
• SANREM-Africa
• Solidaridad Network
• SwedBio
• Tropenbos International
• Water and Land Resources Center
• World Wide Fund for Nature