La réunion a débuté par l’allocution de bienvenue d’Abena Amedormey (représentante nationale de CRS pour le Ghana) et de Maxwell Amedia (au nom de l’équipe ghanéenne et de World Vision Ghana). Les participants ont été présentés et salués. Cette séance a permis de poser les bases solides pour des discussions approfondies et une participation active tout au long de l’atelier.
Tag: capacity building
Resilient Food Systems 2022 Workshop Report [20-23 September 2022, Blantyre, Malawi]
Opening remarks at the RFS Malawi workshop were delivered by Jean‑Marc Sinnassamy, Senior Environmental Specialist at the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and Geoffrey Mamba, Principal Secretary for Irrigation Services, Ministry of Agriculture, Malawi. The guest of honor, Hon. Lobin C. Lowe, MP and Minister of Agriculture, welcomed participants to Blantyre, the “Warm Heart of Africa.” He expressed strong support for the RFS Malawi project, citing visible improvements in food security within project areas. The minister emphasized that government ministries in Malawi have long collaborated with organizations to restore degraded landscapes and improve smallholder livelihoods, while continuing to invest in resilience against droughts, floods, and other climate‑related disasters. He highlighted the uniqueness of the Enhancing the Resilience of Agro‑ecological Systems Project (ERASP), noting its integration with other programmes such as PRIDE to support irrigation education and incentivize upstream benefits through beekeeping and livestock pass‑on initiatives.
Science-Policy Learning Day [06 June 2023, Naivasha, Kenya]
The Resilient Food Systems (RFS) Science‑Policy Learning Day, jointly organized by UNEP, FAO, and AUC, provides a platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration among experts. The workshop aims to share best practices, methods, tools, and evidence‑based solutions with the potential to influence policy directives. Key focus areas include: presenting lessons learned on strengthening institutional frameworks and mechanisms to scale up integrated natural resources and sustainable land management for enhanced food security in Africa; exploring diverse perspectives on the link between land governance, tenure security, and sustainable land management; and showcasing notable achievements of country projects, highlighting their contributions to science‑policy impacts.
Sustainable Farming in Asian Tropical Landscapes (SFITAL)
The Sustainable Farming in Tropical Asian Landscapes (SFITAL) Indonesia project in South Sulawesi (North Luwu) and North Sumatra (North Labuhanbatu), supports smallholder cacao and oil palm farmers in adopting more sustainable, climate-resilient practices through agroforestry, capacity building, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. The project strengthens farmer and extension services through training, demonstration plots, and digital learning platforms, while promoting farming as a business and improving market access. SFITAL also facilitates evidence-based policies, regional action plans, and monitoring systems to guide local decision-making. These efforts enhance productivity, diversify incomes, empower women and youth, and contribute to more resilient livelihoods and environmentally sustainable landscapes.
Promoting Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) through Strengthening the Capacity of Smallholder Farmers: Lessons from Kapuas Hulu District, West Kalimantan
Kapuas Hulu District in West Kalimantan has abundant natural resource potential but faces growing sustainability challenges in the context of climate change, particularly for key plantation commodities such as cacao, rubber, coffee, and oil palm, which are generally cultivated in monoculture systems. These systems are highly vulnerable to market price fluctuations, pest and disease outbreaks, and climate variability. The promotion of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) through agroforestry is seen as a way to strengthen the economic and environmental resilience of smallholder farmers in responding to climate change impacts.
To build smallholders’ capacity to apply CSA practices, the Enhancing the Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies and Practices of Smallholder Commodity Farmers (ECSAP) program implements a range of activities aimed at driving behavioural change using the ADKAR approach (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement). The program has supported the emergence of 24 Independent Extension Agents and Model Farmers who provide farmer-to-farmer extension to promote the adoption of CSA practices for the main plantation commodities in Kapuas Hulu.
This brief also presents a set of recommendations for relevant stakeholders at local and national levels to support smallholder capacity building and to encourage the wider and more sustained implementation of CSA.
Holistic performance measurement for food systems transformation: Scoping the potential of holistic assessment for supporting agroecological transitions – Final Report
This study highlights the need for more holistic approaches to measuring agrifood system performance in order to fairly assess agroecology alongside alternative approaches. Drawing on reviews, interviews, and workshops held in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Tunisia, it identifies barriers and opportunities for measuring and advancing agroecological transitions. Key findings stress the need for harmonized yet context-sensitive metrics, stronger capacity and guidance, and attention to often-overlooked social dimensions such as equity and agency. The study calls for greater coordination among governments, researchers, NGOs, and funders, as well as more strategic investments, to ensure that agroecology can play its full role in transforming food systems towards resilience, sustainability, and inclusivity.
Regreening Africa II Inception Workshop
A workshop in Ghana, opened with welcoming remarks by Abena Amedormey (CRS Country Representative) and Maxwell Amedia (World Vision Ghana), brought together participants for active engagement on land restoration. Phase 1 achievements included restoration of degraded lands across several countries through farmer-managed natural regeneration and agroforestry interventions. Success was driven by strong community engagement, local leadership, and partnerships, while challenges such as coordination complexities, climate variability, and capacity constraints informed adaptive approaches. Integration of traditional knowledge with scientific innovation promoted sustainable land use, laying the foundation for more strategic, inclusive, and scalable actions in Phase 2. Lessons learned emphasized the importance of engaging local farmers and communities from the outset and forging partnerships among governments, NGOs, and communities to build trust and ownership. Workshop objectives included building shared understanding of vision and theory of change, aligning partners through knowledge sharing, applying the “Six Conditions for System Change” framework, strengthening collaboration through defined roles and communication structures, and identifying next steps and timelines for community scoping and inception workshops at the country level.
The Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF) Field Manual [Version 5, August 2025]
The Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF), is a comprehensive method first developed and implemented by World Agroforestry (ICRAF) scientists in Mali in 2005. It provides a science-based field protocol for measuring land and soil characteristics, as well as vegetation composition and land degradation status over time. This field manual describes the LDSF field survey methods and is designed to be used in training and as a reference in field during survey campaigns.
Climate-Smart Agroforestry for Sustainable Landscapes and Agri-Food Systems’ Transformation in Nepal
Increasing demand for food and non-food products by a growing population accompanied by shrinking area of agricultural land—with 17% abandoned or underutilized—has challenged sustainable agricultural development in Nepal. Yet agriculture, which occupies 24.2% of the land area, contributes 23.9% to GDP, engaging two-thirds of the population. Agricultural practices often combine forestry activities across landscapes, forming agroforestry systems. Application of an innovative, climate-smart agroforestry (CSAF) approach to agricultural landscapes can produce a wide range of ecosystem goods and services. A wide range of policy instruments have made clear provisions for utilizing abandoned and marginal land through agroforestry practices that contribute to climate and livelihood goals. However, abandonment of agricultural land is ever-increasing owing to low productivity, out-migration and lack of labor, off-farm income sources and enhanced purchasing power, unscientific land management policies, rugged terrain and harsh climatic conditions, invasive plants and land fragmentation. We recommend policy and institutional reforms through the development of a national roadmap based on a nexus approach to support land-sector policies and priorities, such as strengthening climate and agricultural information services; conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity through site-specific crops in CSAF; development of value chains of CSAF products in partnership with the larger private sector; subsidies and safety nets for resource-poor smallholding and marginalized farmers; building capacity in CSAF technologies and practices; provision of infrastructure and other facilities for commercial CSAF; establishing CSAF as wildlife corridors; and research into the full set of ecosystem services, including carbon and ecotourism, provided by CSAF. This will not only support the agri-food sector but also contribute to climate, livelihood and development goals. This chapter presents the authors’ perspectives on the key challenges facing the agricultural sector and, particularly, the agroforestry sub-sector, and recommends ways for maximizing economic, social and environmental benefits from a CSAF approach.
Gender responsive resource recovery and reuse (RRR) in refugee settings in Africa – for food, energy, and climate resilience
Sub-Saharan Africa, hosts about a third of the global refugee population. The refugee population is disproportionately women and children. Refugees are hosted in fragile arid ecosystems and increase the pressure on resources resulting in land degradation and conflict. Building knowledge and skills of refugee and host communities can shift the paradigm from ‘land degradation’ to ‘land restoration and resilient livelihoods’.
The Resource Recovery and Reuse (RRR) in Refugee Settlements in Africa project was implemented in 2019-2023 in six refugee camps and settlements and their surrounding host communities in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. The aim of the project was to enhance the resilience of these communities by introducing and implementing RRR innovations researched by CGIAR Centers, including the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), and the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and offer innovative solutions for enhanced food and energy security from a circular bioeconomy perspective.