Tag: innovation


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  • At GLF Climate, youth shared 13 sustainable forestry innovations for the Asia-Pacific region

At GLF Climate, youth shared 13 sustainable forestry innovations for the Asia-Pacific region


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More than ever, forests and trees are called upon to address the great global challenges of our times, among which are: climate change, deforestation, forest degradation, biodiversity erosion, poverty and food insecurity. Innovative technologies – including digital technologies, biological technologies, technical innovations in processes and products, innovative finance and social innovations – hold a huge potential to advance sustainable forest management and help address these challenges, globally and in the Asia-Pacific region. However, technology adoption has been slow and uneven in the region. As technology enthusiasts, forest guardians and forest managers of tomorrow, young people have a leading role to play in generating momentum and revolutionizing institutions from within to support the uptake and scaling-up of innovative technologies in Asia and the Pacific.

This is why, on Friday, 5 Nov. 2021, FAO and the CGIAR Research Programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) co-organized a session highlighting youth perspectives on innovative forest technologies. This event attracted over 400 attendees and was part of the GLF Climate hybrid conference, “Frontiers of Change.” “Instead of another meeting to exchange on the global and pressing issues, we wanted, during this event, to focus on innovative solutions and share a note of optimism and hope” said Vincent Gitz (CIFOR), FTA Director.

On behalf of FAO, Rao Matta, Forestry Officer, highlighted the important role innovation can play to make the forest sector more attractive to young people. He invited the youth to become “innovation champions,” to play a pivotal role in scaling-up innovative technologies, and to bring their unique forward-looking and out-of-the-box thinking perspectives to the discussion table. “FAO,” he said, “is fully committed to promote the visibility of youth and of their seminal work”.

During this event, FAO and FTA gave the floor to students and young professionals involved in the forest sector in Asia and the Pacific, to hear some of their ideas to unleash the potential offered by innovative technologies to advance sustainable forest management. 13 young people, aged 18–35, from nine different countries of the Asia-Pacific region who were selected by FAO and CIFOR after an open call for contributions presented their works in 3 minutes each.

Their talks illustrated, in various contexts, the huge potential of innovative forest technologies to advance sustainable forestry and sustainable forest management. Together, the guest speakers covered a broad range of topics, showing how technologies — both new and repurposed — can improve and facilitate monitoring and reporting, strengthen citizen engagement in forest monitoring and management and support process and product innovations in the forest sector in the Asia-Pacific region. These ideas are also inspiring globally and in other contexts.

YOU CAN REPLAY THE FULL EVENT HERE

The presentations gave way to a lively session of questions and answers with the audience. The back-and-forth discussions revealed some of the barriers to uptake and scale innovative technologies. These blockages include: (i) the limited internet connection in rural or remote areas; (ii) the high level of upfront investments that may be required for technology adoption, including for equipment, infrastructure development, capacity-building and involvement of local communities. Participants also noted that restrictive or rigid policies and regulations often lag far behind the quick evolution of innovative technologies, which can hamper their use and dissemination. For instance, current policies and rules may not allow the use of data collected by remote sensing methods in official statistics or as forensic evidence. Concluding this event, Rao Matta, indicated  that intensive, follow-up actions will be organized at country level, probably next year. Young experts will once again be invited to share their experience and views on sustainable innovations for the Asia-Pacific.

To access the 13 video presentations, please follow the links below:

Session 1: How can innovative technologies improve and facilitate monitoring?

  1. Shahrukh Kamran (Pakistan): Development, testing and implementation of insect-catching drones.
  2. Kyuho Lee (Republic of Korea): Drones for planning and monitoring forest ecosystem restoration: towards a forest degradation index
  3. Angga Saputra (Indonesia): Estimating tree height, canopy cover and tree diameter using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology.
  4. Cecille de Jesus (the Philippines): Follow the water: advanced technologies for demonstrating forest-water-community relationships.
  5. Thuan Sarzynski (Vietnam): Google Earth Engine, an innovative technology for forest conservation.
  6. Marie Jessica Gabriel (the Philippines): Spatial Monitoring And Reporting Tool (SMART).

Session 2: How can innovative technologies facilitate the engagement of civil society, local communities, smallholders and youth?

  1. Sony Lama (Nepal): Forest Watcher: employing citizen science in forest management of Nepal.
  2. Nur Bahar (Malaysia): How to effectively engage youth in satellite-based tropical forest monitoring?
  3. June Mandawali (Papua New Guinea): Community Based Tree Nurseries in Ramu/Markham Valley of Papua New Guinea.

Session 3: How can innovative technologies support optimization of processes and products for sustainable forest management?

  1. Sanjayaraj Tamang (Nepal): Invasive species management in Nepal: a pathway to sustainable forest management.
  2. Clarence Gio S. Almoite (the Philippines): Building back Philippine biodiversity through geotagging mother tree species for modernized and mechanized forest nurseries.
  3. Prachi Gupta (India): Advances in the wood anatomical studies with innovations in microscopy.
  4. Deasy Ramatia (Indonesia): Binderless particleboard: production process and self- bonding mechanisms.
Download the PDF!

All of these 3-minute presentations have been developed in detailed scientific articles and gathered in a FAO and FTA co-publication entitled, Innovative forestry for a sustainable future. Youth contributions from Asia and the Pacific.

This youth publication is part of a broader roadmap jointly developed by FAO and FTA on innovative forest technologies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Click here for more information on this roadmap process.

 

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  • A new partnership for more sustainable and equitable food systems

A new partnership for more sustainable and equitable food systems


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Agroecology Transformative Partnership Platform just launched at a side event at the 48th Plenary of the Committee on World Food Security

Food production is the world’s leading cause of biodiversity loss. It also accounts for about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions and causes widespread degradation of the land and water resources upon which it depends.

But could we redesign our food systems to work with nature, rather than against it?

Enter agroecology, a science that applies the principles and concepts of ecology to farming, making the most of nature’s resources without damaging or depleting them. It includes adopting practices that mitigate climate change, limit impacts on wildlife, and hand a key role to farmers and local communities.

A new initiative aims to spearhead the transition to agroecology. On 3 June, the Agroecology Transformative Partnership Platform (TPP) was launched at a side event of the 48th Plenary of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS 48). More than 460 people followed the discussions from 56 countries and posed questions to representatives from some of the nations implementing agroecological transitions.

Replay full event here

Initiated by the CGIAR research programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) and the French Republic via research institutions CIRAD, IRD and INRAE, and with its secretariat at ICRAF, the Agroecology TPP will accelerate uptake of agroecology by addressing knowledge and implementation gaps, coordinating the work of key partners, and providing evidence to inform policymakers, practitioners and donors.

“If we are to preserve the health of our planet and ensure human sustainability, governments the world over must not hesitate to adopt bold policies,” said His Excellency the President of Sri Lanka Gotabaya Rajapaksa, one of several high-level speakers at the launch. “Such policies should support ecological conservation, help combat the loss of biodiversity and enable people to achieve their economic aspirations in more sustainable ways.”

Sri Lanka recently banned imports of artificial fertilizer and agrochemicals as part of a “long-needed national transition to a healthier and more ecologically sound system of organic agriculture,” said President Rajapaksa, adding that the Sri Lankan government will be supporting farmers and agribusinesses in the agroecological transition through subsidies and the purchases of paddy at guaranteed prices.

Listen to the full statement of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, President of Sri Lanka

CFS chair Thanawat Tiensin initiated the CFS48 plenary the day after by thanking the President of Sri Lanka for his statement at the Agroecology TPP side event. President Rajapaksa’s statement was replayed in full at the plenary to kick off the country statements following the adoption of the policy recommendations around the HLPE report. IFAD vice president Dominik Ziller, speaking on behalf of the IFAD president, described the HLPE (2019) report as “an essential reference to those seeking to meet the SDGs”.

France, meanwhile, is supporting countries in the Global South in adopting agroecological practices. Prior to funding the TPP, it contributed EUR 600 million at the launch of the Great Green Wall accelerator, which it hosted in Paris, to combat desertification in the African Sahel. In November 2020, France also hosted the Finance in Common summit, which launched a new coalition of public development banks led by IFAD to improve access to finance for smallholders and small-scale agribusinesses.

“For France, it is urgent to transform our current systems towards sustainable and resilient food systems that allow everyone access to quality, healthy, safe, diversified and sustainably produced food,” said Ambassador Céline Jurgensen, France’s permanent representative to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“France calls for a paradigm shift so that an agroecological approach can replace the Green Revolution of recent decades to meet the climatic, environmental and social challenges that we all face today in both the North and the South.”

Other panelists included representatives from Switzerland and Senegal, who highlighted the role of international institutions and projects in facilitating the transition to agroecology in the buildup to the U.N. Food Systems Summit (26–28 July).

“Thirty years ago, organic products had hardly any access to the market,” said Pio Wennubst, Ambassador for the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the U.N. in Rome. “Now 20% of the food consumption in Switzerland is organic-based production.”

“All the knowledge we developed in Switzerland cannot be simply transferred the way we did in the past with positive intentions. We need another connectivity, another way to discuss and connect with the world on these issues.”

Senegal, for example, is working with FAO to reduce chemical pesticide use through the Integrated Production and Pest Management Programme, which has also increased yields by around 40%.

“Senegal encourages all participants because it is not easy to promote new technologies, said Papa Abdoulaye Seck, Senegal’s ambassador to Italy, in a statement delivered by advisor Madiagne Tall. “But by raising each other’s awareness, we will all become aware of the need to deepen such approaches.”

Civil society actors also featured at the launch, including representatives of indigenous people’s organisations and social entrepreneurs from Paraguay and Kenya, who presented initiatives on farming practices, local and indigenous knowledge and voting on pesticide bans.

The TPP builds on a series of major dialogues and reports, in line with the 13 agroecological principles and policy recommendations from the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) of the CFS. It works across eight domains in partnership with a core group of institutions including FAO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Biovision, CGIAR, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), AFA, AFSA and the governments of France and Switzerland.

The TPP’s approach consists of four steps, said Elisabeth Claverie de Saint-Martin, director general for research and strategy at CIRAD. “To tackle knowledge gaps, first gather the best scientists around an unsolved issue. Second, define a common methodology. Third, apply to a wide diversity of situations and contexts; and fourth, try to generate useful knowledge, both specific to the contexts and generic.”

This approach has already been applied to a growing portfolio of projects across Asia, Africa and Latin America, she added, referring to a France-funded TPP project that aims to evaluate the socioeconomic viability of agroecological practices across Africa.

“As it goes forward, the TPP will contribute to creating a level playing field for agroecological approaches to be taken up,” said Fergus Sinclair, chief scientist at CIFOR–ICRAF and co-convener of the TPP and project team leader of the HLPE report.

“The TPP will embrace the complexity needed to transition to co-created locally relevant agriculture and food systems, and enable the horizontal integration across sectors and vertical integration across scales required to translate national and international commitments under the UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD and AFR100 into meaningful action on the ground.”

“The contribution of agroecological approaches to achieving the 2030 agenda by applying locally adapted solutions for agri-food systems that are environmentally sustainable and economically fair and socially acceptable is increasingly recognized. That is why the FAO conference requested the further integration of sustainable agriculture approaches, including agroecology, in FAO’s work,” said Ismahane Elouafi, Chief Scientist at FAO. She then concluded the event with these inspiring words: “Through the newly established transformative partnership platform that you presented on agroecology, FAO will actively engage in inclusive collaboration with different stakeholders to transform agri-food systems for better production better nutrition, a better environment and a better life, and leave no one behind.”

Get involved by joining the TPP Community of Practice on GLFx.

By Ming Chun Tang. This article was produced by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with ICRAF, The Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.

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  • Annual Report 2019 highlights FTA’s contribution to resilient landscapes and livelihoods

Annual Report 2019 highlights FTA’s contribution to resilient landscapes and livelihoods


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In the past year, the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) has brough crucial evidence to global discussions on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on Climate. Also, it has empowered thousands of people to transform evidence into action. The newly launched Annual Report highlights these and other FTA achievements in 2019 in support of resilient and productive landscapes and livelihoods around the world.

The report examines FTA’s innovative work across the technical, financial and policy spheres of development, as well as its contribution to national and international policies and decision-making process that touch on, at least, nine of the SDGs. In terms of priority areas, it looks at FTA’s work on genetic tree resources; livelihood systems; sustainable value chains and investments; landscapes dynamics, productivity and resilience; and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Cross-cutting areas include gender, youth and capacity building.

In 2019, the program’s effort to help translate scientific evidence into better policies bore yet more fruit. With FTA’s support, for example, Nepal became the second country in the world to have a national agroforestry policy, while Uganda succeeded in adopting a 10-year national bamboo strategy and action plan, and Ethiopia established a National Tree Seed Network.

FTA’s innovations and projects resulted in the restoration of 550,000 hectares of forest, and made it possible for 220,000 farmers to embrace sustainable agricultural practices across Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Ethiopia and Kenya. More than 10,000 farmers in Africa also adopted vital land restoration techniques with FTA’s support.

FTA’s research continued informing global discussions shaping the future of food security, biodiversity and climate change. Notably, the UN Committee on World Food Security High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) report on agroecology and the Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA) paper on building resilient agriculture. On the biodiversity, gender and climate fronts, FTA collaborated with major global actors such as FAO, UNFCCC, IPBES and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Sustainable value chains and investments are another pillar of FTA’s efforts. Last year, for instance, FTA developed inclusive finance and business models with companies across Tanzania, Ghana and Peru, and strengthened its engagement with rubber stakeholders to make the supply of this commodity more sustainable.

FTA’s efforts in partnerships and capacity-building were compounded by the launch of products that enhance decision-making on issues at the crossroads of food, climate and biodiversity. For example, the Ecosystem-based adaptation monitoring tool in Gambia, the Priority food tree and crop food composition database for sub-Saharan Africa, the Agroforestry species switchboard as well as several publications to support the design of national policies on REDD+. FTA’s climate change mitigation and adaptation workstream participated at COP25 in Spain, where it had the chance to share its work on REDD+ as well as on bioenergy, peatlands and bamboo, among others.

Likewise, FTA sought to bring a gender perspective to global processes such as the Rio Conventions on biodiversity, climate change and desertification, and to advance ender equity along value chains for commodities such as charcoal, coffee and tea.

In the coming months, FTA’s will continue building on these successes to create healthier landscapes and enhanced livelihoods for women and men worldwide.

A toolkit to promote the FTA Annual Report is also available here.

This article was produced by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR, ICRAF and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.

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  • eDialogue - Scaling up innovative finance for sustainable landscapes

eDialogue – Scaling up innovative finance for sustainable landscapes


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Mau Forest and tea plantations. Photo by Patrick Shepherd/CIFOR
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Agriculture and forestry are central to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals. Nearly 60% of food production is produced by smallholders. Small and medium-sized enterprises also play an important role along the value chain in facilitating the economic viability of smallholder agriculture and forestry activities. All of them need sophisticated financial mechanisms to shift towards more sustainable practices. Unfortunately, as of today, less than 3% of climate and conservation finance is assigned to agriculture and forestry, and only a small proportion of this actually reaches the smallholders. This is an issue and a growing concern, as they are by far the largest food producers of the world.

New forms of finance are creating opportunities for smallholder initiatives, but still struggle with considerable barriers. Investors find few viable projects while small businesses and associations often cannot access financial support. To help bridge this gap and mainstream inclusiveness and sustainability criteria in financial decision-making, two of the partners of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), Tropenbos International and CIFOR, started a dialogue to identify the main challenges and what has been done to overcome them.

The dialogue began this year with a series of research interviews, where diverse stakeholders had the opportunity to explain their experiences in trying to making finance more sustainable and inclusive for smallholder farmers, foresters, producer organizations and associated businesses. Participants to the interviews discussed the benefits that inclusiveness can bring, focusing on key areas including gender, shared values, and the social license to operate (for example ensuring that Free, Prior, Informed Consent (FPIC) or similar procedures that have been implemented by investees).

Promising initiatives and financial instruments were discussed in a Digital Summit that followed shortly, which was complemented by a literature review. All these exercises identified specific barriers and discussed possible solutions to upscale innovative finance and render it more inclusive. The results of this ongoing dialogue were then summarized and developed into a draft document called: “Scaling of innovative finance for sustainable landscapes”. This document is now openly accessible on the GLFx platform – where a Community of Practice made up of experts and practitioners are taking part in an innovative eDialogue, sharing thoughts, case studies, references and replying to questions and issues raised by participants. The aim is to increase the shared knowledge, identifying gaps in the study, in order to enrich before publication and come to a more impactful document, one that can be useful to a wider range of stakeholders.

Anyone can join the debate and we encourage you to do so as well!

Sustainable and inclusive landscapes are those in which all stakeholders are engaged in the design, implementation and learning of/from actions that increase the sustainability of that landscape.

Key strategies highlighted so far by this long-term dialogue and study are the need to facilitate increased  collaboration between local groups (associations, NGOs, CSOs) and financial entities, and to create or strengthen local financial infrastructure ensuring good governance and equitable ownership. Successful examples include forest communities in Guatemala at a landscape scale and coffee producer organizations at national level in several Central American countries.

Taking the dialogue to Luxembourg

Join GLF Luxembourg!

 

In its fourth year as the world’s most innovative forum on sustainable land-use finance, on the 30th November 2019 the GLF Investment Case Symposium will bring the brightest minds together to move this form of finance from niche to mainstream.

 

 

FTA, Tropenbos and CIFOR have the privilege to organize a session at this Forum on “Innovating Finance to Overcome Current Barriers Towards Sustainable Landscapes”. Seven panelists representing different sections of the finance ‘value chain’ will discuss the strategies and the problems international funds have to reach smallholder farmers and why it is difficult to upscale these mechanisms. A debate on what steps are needed to bridge the funding gaps for scaling up inclusive and sustainable local agricultural and forestry operations.

The panel will capitalize on the electronic consultation and eDialogue now running on GLFx to discuss further how to upscale innovative finance. Success stories will be shared and the possibility of extending these paradigms to different landscapes will be a main output of the debate. The session will be live streamed, so if you cannot participate to the discussions directly in Luxembourg, you will be able to follow it and interact via chat and sli.do.

The outcomes from the session should help reach an agreement on which concrete steps can be proposed to financial institutions, fund managers, NGOs and civil society organizations in order to facilitate the access to climate- and SDG-related financial assets. The study will propose recommendations to be followed up with feasibility pilots, promoting full implementation across the value chain actors.

Innovation is key

Access it here!

Most of the funds currently flowing into landscapes actually respond to the needs and visions of large companies and, whereas a growing proportion of them now considers social or environmental issues, real reductions in deforestation, forest degradation, poverty, hunger and inequity still lag behind. However, new innovative financial mechanisms are demonstrating to be extremely effective in unlocking funds for investments in a sustainable and inclusive way. Our study concentrates on these innovative methods – these have also been summarized in a White Paper.

Here below a useful recap of the current main findings of the study.

More are being discussed in our eDialogue, where you can join to voice your knowledge, ideas and concerns.

Main financial instruments used globally

Primarily for financial returns (and impacts, if by a Development Finance Institution)

  • Debt based instruments, e.g. bonds and loans (short, medium, long term)
  • Result based instruments, e.g. for products, services or ecosystem services
  • Equity, e.g. a purchased stake in an enterprise

 Primarily but not exclusively for sustainable development impacts

  • Direct enabling investments, e.g. for land restoration, green infrastructure or market development
  • Input and export subsidies
  • Tax incentives (or disincentives)
  • Concessional loans
  • Grants
  • Risk sharing mechanisms, e.g. insurance (on production or investment), guarantees, public-private partnerships, off-take agreements

(Adapted from Shames et al. 2019)

Entry points to access finance

Seven main enabling factors were identified that can boost the uptake and impact of innovative finance for sustainable landscapes, and further seven influencing factors that can affect the extent to which investments achieve and maintain sustainability.

Enabling factors to stimulate access to financial services

  1. The nature of financial instruments, e.g. application processes, documentary needs, legitimacy, transparency, and coherence of investor objectives with stakeholder objectives.
  2. Adequate financial literacy of investees, e.g. understanding key financial concepts, and the ability to make decisions based on financial information provided adequately.
  3. Aggregation of recipients, e.g. improving cost effectiveness, reducing risks and increasing opportunities to produce results and impacts at scale.
  4. Appropriate policies and regulations, e.g. national policies, regulatory frameworks and other enabling conditions for monetary transactions.
  5. Access to technological innovation, e.g. the physical proximity to financial services and availability of mobile phones and required applications.
  6. Ability to provide a contribution, e.g. having at least some existing capital to be able to contribute to the total financial requirement of planned projects.
  7. Ability to ensure sustainability, e.g. of practices, including organization, risk management, effective use of knowledge and experience, and certification if desired.

Influencing factors to help achieve sustainability

  1. Operational organization, e.g. within and between different stakeholder groups along the value chain, producers, processors, wholesalers, retailers, etc.
  2. Risk management strategies, e.g. perceived risk is a major limitation for investors, that can be reduced through better communication and understanding, insurance, etc.
  3. Knowledge and experience, e.g. especially those related to market access, e.g. knowing where to go, what prices to expect, and how to negotiate.
  4. Certification and other frameworks, e.g. to guide and monitor investee practices and their impacts, including through third-party certified products or services.
  5. Security of land and resource tenure, e.g. financial institutions and their clients must respect existing legal and customary land rights to ensure sustainable practices.
  6. Access to markets and resources, e.g. considering physical aspects, human aspects (information, skills), and social aspects (legal and customary rights, and equity).
  7. Migration and urbanization, e.g. creating opportunities for sustainable livelihoods and applying due diligence to avoid added displacement linked to large scale farming.

Innovations in finance

Our study identified until now three innovative instruments that offer opportunities to unlock finance for SMEs, smallholders and communities while also addressing investors’ issues (e.g. rate of returns, risks, measurable impacts, etc.).

  1. Blended finance;
  2. Green bonds; and
  3. Crowdfunding.
Join the online eDialogue to access the document and the debate!

These mechanisms build on existing financial instruments, so the innovation is fundamentally in their capacity to identify and facilitate new objectives, rules and regulations. All these financial instruments can increase accessibility with more flexibility in expectations, thus liberating liquidity. However, they generally require an intermediary to facilitate fund acquisition, management and distribution. One-size-fits-all solutions are unlikely to work, nor will quick fixes. In the past, initiatives that have proven successful in integrating inclusive approaches were typically long term (>10 years) and initially supported by public funds, with commercial finance attracted later, so this needs to be taken into consideration when planning new projects with the identified sets of financial tools. Lessons learned from the past should be part of the strategic planning of today’s finance for sustainable landscapes.

 

Here below is a short summary of the innovative instruments currently in our draft paper.

Blended finance – The strategic use of public or philanthropic capital to mobilize finance for development-related investments. Mixing development and commercial finance into specific funds creates opportunities to address issues of aggregation, network strengthening and technological innovation. Impacts are increased when accompanied by grassroots technical support from NGOs and CSOs that address local issues.

Green bonds – A debt obligation that links funding to climate or environmentally friendly investments. Proceeds can be used for a range of ‘green’ actions, and if the initial investment is ‘patient capital’, repayment is only needed when bonds mature. Require strong local institutions or intermediates that can issue bonds and manage the proceeds according to international standards.

Crowdfunding – The pooling of small amounts of capital from a large number of interested individuals and institutions. Suited to local scales, but needs investors with an affinity to the issues, locations or intended activities. Opportunities increase when umbrella groups and platforms in target landscapes and linked with developed countries groups, ensuring compliance with agreed sustainability criteria.

Integrated approaches – Needed to scale up finance for sustainable and inclusive landscapes, including combinations of financial structures, mechanisms, instruments, conditions and capacity by strengthening the capacities of those that influence the impacts of financed practices. Overseas development assistance can also help to address some conditions such as policy and regulatory frameworks, building skills and knowledge, and the infrastructure needed for mobile finance.

By Nick Pasiecznik, Tropenbos International

From a draft study of: Bas Louman,i Eveline Trines,i Michael Brady,ii Nick Pasieczniki, Vincent Gitz,ii Alexandre Meybeckii, Gerhard Mulderi, Laurent Fremyii.

i Tropenbos International, Wageningen, The Netherlands; ii CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia

This work is supported by the Netherlands and by other CGIAR Trustfund donors.

This article was produced by Tropenbos International and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR, ICRAF and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.

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  • SDG synergy between agriculture and forestry in the food, energy, water and income nexus: reinventing agroforestry?

SDG synergy between agriculture and forestry in the food, energy, water and income nexus: reinventing agroforestry?

15 February, 2019

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Among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) three broad groups coexist: first, articulating demand for further human resource appropriation, second, sustaining the resource base, and third, redistributing power and benefits. Agriculture and forestry jointly interact with all three. The SDG portfolio calls for integrated land use management. Technological alternatives shift the value of various types of land use (forests, trees and agricultural practices) as source of ‘ecosystem services’. At the interface of agriculture and forestry the 40-year old term agroforestry has described technologies (AF1) and an approach to multifunctional landscape management (AF2). A broadened Land Equivalence Ratio (LER) as performance metric indicates efficiency. Agroforestry also is an opportunity to transcend barriers between agriculture and forestry as separate policy domains (AF3). Synergy between policy domains can progress from recognized tradeoffs and accepted coexistence, via common implementation frames, to space for shared innovation. Further institutional space for integral ‘all-land-uses’ approaches is needed.

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