We’re gathering landscape leaders from across Africa in Arusha, November 12-15, for peer-to-peer learning and agenda-setting from the grassroots.
Dozens of partner organizations are nominating local partners from around the continent to join us in Arusha to strengthen local capacity for integrated landscape management for sustainable rural development in Africa.
Meeting restoration targets requires strong landscape-level planning and management
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 we ensure our countries keep these commitments?
And more to the point, how will 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.
Co-organizing group invites your nominees for sponsored participants
Local landscape leaders are not your typical conference attendees: they are heads down working with their neighbors, district councils, county agencies, schools, churches, local businesses, and civil society organizations. But they too need the space to reflect, opportunities to share and connect with each other, and time to learn and improve their ability to be effective. To reach them, we’ve partnered with generous donors supporting fully sponsored participation including travel, accommodations, and per diem, for African landscape leaders. But we need to identify them first. Can you help? Know someone who should attend: add their information here: https://forms.gle/ayRnvAsBqcNwgaKL7. We will only use it to contact them about the African Landscapes Dialogue.
What will happen in Arusha?
The co-organizers are still programming the conference details, but we are very excited to share some specific elements.
- A full-day field trip to Kilimanjaro-area landscape initiatives, with opportunity for dialogue with the initiative’s local leaders.
- A Tools Bazaar where organizations demonstrate or describe, in short and sweet sessions, tools that support collaborative landscape management processes.
- Thematic tracks to allow people dive deep together on a key issue or challenge in their landscape and shape the next iteration of the African Landscapes Action Plan for support to local landscape initiatives on that theme.
Themes include:
- Landscape convening and governance
- Climate smart landscapes planning and policy
- Business engagement, employment, and entrepreneurship for a green economy
- Wildlife and biodiversity issues in landscape management
- Innovations in landscape finance and investment
- Property rights and land use planning
Cross-cutting topics to be explored in each thematic area include gender, youth, and capacity-building strategies.
