Mécanisme pour la restauration des forêts et des paysages

The Restoration Initiative: joining forces on forest and landscape restoration

Year published: 19/12/2016

The Project preparation phase of the Restoration Initiative (TRI) was officially launched in November 2016 in Douala, Cameroon, during the 1st global TRI workshop. Approved by the Global Environment Facility Council (GEF) on 8 June 2016 for a total of US$54 million, the TRI is gearing up to be a key ally in global efforts to improve people’s livelihoods through the restoration of priority degraded and deforested landscapes around the world. 

The Restoration Initiative’s thematic programme developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and FAO is expected to make a significant contribution to The Bonn Challenge target of restoring 150 million ha of degraded lands by 2020. The TRI consists of 11 national projects, known as “child projects”, and a global “learning, financing and partnerships” project to support the implementation of the national child projects. The main aim is to develop and disseminate best practices and tools in order to improve forest and landscape restoration (FLR) implementation and catalyse investment to bring benefits at scale. 

Focusing on an initial group of ten countries  – Cameroon, Central African Republic, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sao Tome and Principe, and the United Republic of Tanzania – TRI has been designed to remove key barriers to effective and sustainable forest and landscape restoration. Support will be provided under four main components:

  1. Policy development and integration: to increase national and sub-national commitment to forest and landscape restoration in TRI countries, by identifying and filling knowledge gaps, and supporting the development of integrated policy frameworks.
  2. Implementation of restoration programmes and complementary initiatives: to restore deforested and degraded landscapes, by promoting integrated landscape-management practices and restoration plans adapted to TRI countries.
  3. Engagement of institutions and financing partners, and capacity building: to mobilize domestic and external funding for large-scale restoration programmes and set up the conditions and capacities for scaling-up FLR.
  4. Knowledge, partnerships, monitoring and assessment: to promote and share knowledge and information on all innovative FLR practices within TRI countries and outside.

 Currently, FAO coordinates child projects in five countries – Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Pakistan, and Sao Tome and Principe – and leads the global component on knowledge management. FAO will also provide key support to UNEP and IUCN for the effective implementation of the other global components on finance, scaling-up of implementation and policy development.  

At the Douala workshop, 12 project teams, including the lead agencies’ staff and nationals from the ten TRI countries and 12 TRI child projects, agreed on strategies to develop the Initiative’s programmatic approach built around knowledge, ownership and support among partners. The participants gained a more profound understanding of the FLR approach and of the tools available to support effective delivery of the four main components at national level. Moreover, by bringing together partners from across the globe for discussions in one venue, the workshop created the conditions for productive synergies and knowledge sharing on potential challenges and opportunities of the 12 projects and learned of partners’ key objectives. They also gained many insights that will help inform and shape the global project in order to increase its worldwide impact and support national project implementation.

Following the workshop, the five FAO national child project teams and FAO experts worked for two days (3–4 November) to finalize the preparatory phase work plans and activities. This provided another opportunity to discuss the tools and information gathered duringThe Project preparation phase of the Restoration Initiative (TRI) was officially launched in November 2016 in Douala, Cameroon, during the 1st global TRI workshop. Approved by the Global Environment Facility Council (GEF) on 8 June 2016 for a total of US$54 million, the TRI is gearing up to be a key ally in global efforts to improve people’s livelihoods through the restoration of priority degraded and deforested landscapes around the world. 

With initial groundwork completed, action over the coming months will focus on the organization of a series of national inception workshops in each TRI country and on in-country work to develop the final project documents. The projects should be submitted to GEF in early summer 2017 and rolled out in the first quarter of 2018. 

The Restoration Initiative’s global launch workshop was held from 31 October to 2 November 2016 in Douala, Cameroon. For further information on the TRI and its Thematic Programme, please contact the FLRM team at: [email protected], and consult the approved documents at http://www.thegef.org/project/tri-restoration-initiative-fostering-innovation-and-integration-support-bonn-challenge.

Mathilde Iweins and Christophe Besacier

(FAO)