Forests are degrading at an alarming speed in Africa, where 4 million hectares of forest disappear every year. To invert this dangerous degradation trend, 31 African governments have committed through the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) to restoring 100 million hectares by 2030 in contribution to the Bonn Challenge.  

To support the ambitious restoration goals set by the Bonn Challenge and AFR100, the Alliance for Restoration of Forest Ecosystems in Africa (AREECA), funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) aims to increase the socioeconomic, ecological and climate-related benefits from large-scale forest and landscape restoration (FLR) in four beneficiary countries: Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi and Rwanda. The AREECA project will run until June 2025, and its implementing organizations are the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, FAO, the African Union Development Agency, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the World Bank Group, the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature, with GIZ implementing the project as Project Management Unit (PMU). 

After the official launch of AREECA during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, meetings have only now started to resume in person. In 2022, in the context of the global component of the project, which comprises the four aforementioned countries, two very important events took place in Malawi and Rwanda. 

After an online workshop held in February, during which countries presented their baseline reports and results frameworks, in April, the monitoring focal points of each country, together with the PMU, met in Malawi to discuss the monitoring and indicators at programme level. It was agreed that a manual would be developed to facilitate the monitoring and reporting to the country teams, providing detailed information about programme indicators. The meeting also provided an opportunity to visit some of the project implementation sites in the Mpira Dam Catchment in Ntcheu District. The visit included a meeting with the district council, members of parliament, district ward councillors, traditional authorities, farmers and communities at large, and the Gomeza Full primary school, where activities aim to increase social, ecological and economic benefits of FLR. The team was able to appreciate the extent of degradation and some restoration interventions, such as reforestation using native tree species, giant bamboo and fruit tree species. 

In May, the second Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting took place in Rwanda, and it was the first face-to-face meeting since the project was launched last year. The PSC counted with the presence of representatives from the Rwandan Ministry of Environment, the German Embassy and the donors (IKI, BMUV and ZUG). During the first day, all four countries provided updates on their activities and composition of their national PSCs. This was also a chance for PMU and FAO to present the draft monitoring manual to guide countries in their monitoring and evaluation, and reporting, which includes detailed information on the programme-level indicators, and to discuss the first ideas for a study on indirect benefits generated by restoration interventions. On the second day, AUDA-NEPAD presented activities carried out and planned at regional level on knowledge management, the World Bank on resources and WRI on capacity needs assessment and monitoring.  

A visit to the Nyandungu Urban Wetland Ecotourism Park in Kigali was organized, where a total of 120 ha of wetland have been restored to provide people with a place for recreation within the urban area. The group also visited the different project implementation sites led by IUCN in the Kirehe District. These sites included a school where raising-awareness campaigns are ongoing and acacia trees have been planted, agroforestry plots where tree species have been intercropped, and higher altitude woodlots where afforestation has been carried out with native Acacia spp. and non-native Cupressus spp. 

It was agreed that the next PSC meetings would be organized in October 2022 online, and in person in late March or the beginning of April 2023 in Cameroon. 

Priscah Munthali (FAO Malawi) and Luis Amaya (FAO Malawi)