Regional and Global Programmes
The Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) regularly calls for proposals to support global and regional apex forest and farm producers’ organizations. FFF focuses on ways organizations can improve service delivery to their members. In total, five organizations (one in Africa, one in Asia, one in Latin America) and two global networks were chosen for collaboration and awarded FFF grants by demonstrating that they:
- Enhance gender mainstreaming and/or support as well as youth engagement;
- Promote or influence more inclusive governance and cross-sectorial processes;
- Improve capacity for increased entrepreneurship, access to markets and finance, and business development services;
- Improve delivery of landscape scale mitigation, adaptation and resilience for climate change; and/or
- Enhance capacity for improved and equitable access to social and cultural services.
A new call for proposal is likely to be launched at the end of 2022.
Africa
Network of Farmers Organizations and Agricultural Producers of West Africa
The Network of Farmers Organizations and Agricultural Producers of West Africa (ROPPA in French) brings together 147 grassroots producer organizations in 15 countries, each with its own national platform. The primary mission of ROPPA is to ensure that agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries policies are based on a family farm model that can guarantee food sovereignty.
In collaboration with FFF, ROPPA strengthens the knowledge of farmers’ organizations in sustainable forest management by recording innovative ideas and practices of selected family farms.
Another of ROPPA’s objectives is to directly influence agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries policies through developing position papers and organizing discussions on the protection of forest areas in legislative arenas.
The last component focuses on the promotion of usable or marketable forest products, which supports the protection of community forest areas. Activities around this component are organized to promote the participation of women and youth in trade fairs, and encourage exchange visits between West Africans and those in similar positions in other regions of Africa.
Asia
Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development
The Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) is an alliance of 20 national farmers’ organizations spanning 16 countries in Asia – with individual membership of around 13 million members. AFA’s goal is to strengthen the capacity of the leaders and technical staff from national farmer organizations to aid in eradicating poverty and hunger, increasing resilience, and bringing about a sense of well-being for family farmers.
With FFF support, AFA will strengthen the voices and advocacy capacity of the young men and women farmer-leaders of FFPOs. AFA advocates for sustainable, resilient, gender and youth sensitive agroforestry-based livelihoods within the framework of the UN Decade on Family Farming. For example, young farmers’ committees developed Young Farmers Action Plans in ten countries (Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Nepal, India, Mongolia, and Kyrgyzstan).
Building on the above, AFA strengthens cross-sectoral, multi-stakeholder policy with better representation from young farmers’ committees by organizing regional exchanges and supporting the development of communication campaigns to inform policy makers about recommendations to promote entrepreneurship among youth.
AFA is also working in the realm of policy influencing of major climate change agreements such as UNFCCC. In ten Asian countries, AFA will work to increase visibility of national FFPOs, and especially young farmers and family farmers, at the national, regional and global policy level related to UNFCCC COP. The goal is to empower and increase engagement in such international policy processes.
Latin America
Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests
The Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB in Spanish) is a space for coordination and exchange among ten territorial authorities that manage or influence the main forest areas of Mesoamerica. Indigenous governments and community forestry organizations in the Alliance seek to strengthen their own dialogues – focused on community management of natural resources – jointly seeking to influence governments and international cooperation so that strategies for biodiversity conservation and climate balance appropriately integrate the rights and benefits of indigenous peoples and forest communities.
In collaboration with FFF, AMPB’s Women Coordinating Body, working in the most relevant advocacy spaces in the region, promotes policies that provide positive business environments for grassroots companies. This includes creation of financial programs and products according to the needs of local groups without discriminatory elements based on ethnicity and gender. Globally, AMPB women leaders advocate at key policy events such as UNFCCC COPs and related platforms.
Global programmes
World Rural Forum
The World Rural Forum (WRF) is made up of family farming federations and organizations and promotes family farming and sustainable rural development. Its work focuses on the fact that women represent an average of 43% of the agricultural labour force in developing countries but constitute less than 20% of landholders, and that almost 80% of the world’s extreme poor live in rural areas and work in agriculture.
With FFF support, WRF works with 6 regional member organisations, representing more than 35 million of family farmers: Central Africa (PROPAC, Plateforme Régionale des Organisations Paysannes d'Afrique Centrale), South and East Africa (ESAFF, Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum and REFACOF, Réseau des Femmes Africaines pour la gestion Communautaire des Forêts), Central America (PDRR, Programa de Diálogo Regional Rural), South America (COPROFAM, Confederación de Organizaciones de Productores Familiares del MERCOSUR), and Asia (AFA, Asian Farmers Association).
With FFF support, WRF strengthens the capacities of FFPOs to promote policy and legal frameworks conducive to the economic empowerment and livelihood resilience of rural women, seizing the opportunity of the implementation of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming 2019-2028 (UNDFF). WRF will also support FFPOs to strengthen advocacy capacities and their participation in local, national, regional, and global political dialogue spaces.
Global Alliance of Territorial Communities
The Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC), is an alliance between the Alliance of Indigenous Communities of the Indonesian Archipelago (AMAN), the Mesoamerican Alliance of Forest Peoples (AMPB), the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), the Network for Sustainable Management of Forests in Central Africa (REPALEAC), and the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB). In total, the Global Alliance represents indigenous peoples and local communities in 24 countries.
These alliances work together on five key messages:
- The rights of indigenous peoples and local communities over the lands they occupy must be recognized
- Any intervention in these territories must go through a process of free and informed prior consent
- Direct access of their organizations to climate funds for the protection and management of these territories
- Their leaders should not continue to be criminalized or killed
- All policies developed in their territories must take into account their traditional knowledge
An example of the Global Alliance’s work is the Shandia initiative, which involves setting up financing mechanisms, such as the Mesoamerican Territorial Fund (FTM) to strengthen or create local capacity to absorb climate finance, such as the $1.7 billion in financing that was pledged to reach local communities directly at COP26.

