Communities, experts and practitioners across the continent are shifting narratives, building resilient landscapes, raising funds for the planet and learning from each other. Here’s how
Nairobi, Kenya (27 February 2025) – Africa is positioning itself as a global hub for innovation and environmental action drawing from a rich heritage of both scientific and ancestral knowledge systems.
Over the past two years, more than 10,000 people worldwide have engaged in conversations and interactive sessions, with innovators tackling some of the continent’s most pressing challenges – millions have followed their transformative stories online.
Convened by the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF), African communities, experts and practitioners from diverse sectors and generations have exchanged knowledge and showcased holistic, rights-based approaches to restoring, protecting and sustainably managing forests and landscapes.
Together, these changemakers are striving to safeguard ecosystems, strengthen food security and support local livelihoods. Here are five key lessons we can learn from them.
African leadership and stewardship: 5 pathways to ecological balance
- Rewrite narratives and reshape discourse. Across Africa, people are holding dialogues, engaging in negotiations and exchanging knowledge to co-create a resilient and healthy relationship with the Earth’s landscapes. Regional actors and local landscape practitioners are connecting to drive transformative restoration through sovereign solutions while tapping into global trends such as artificial intelligence and social media through a bottom-up approach. By engaging in hybrid and digital spaces, Africans are actively shaping the conversation on sustainable landscapes in the face of competing interests.
- Transform landscapes from the ground up. Small grants are delivering much-needed landscape finance to Africa, allowing communities to implement high-impact, low-cost community and landscape development models. Community-led initiatives are scaling up landscape work, increasing self-organization and influencing policy. Communities are strengthening local ownership, enhancing financial efficiency and ensuring that landscape development aligns with their needs, values, knowledge and rights.
- Strengthen youth leadership and inclusion. As the planet’s ‘youngest continent,’ with over 400 million people between the ages of 15 and 35, Africa’s future hinges upon supporting its youth in stewarding their landscapes. Across the continent, young people are producing knowledge that informs sustainable practices, guiding landscape actors and influencing policy. Passionate young changemakers are building skills and advancing a vision that values their perspectives and secures the continent’s future. Training and education for Africa’s youth is as critical as providing fair access to financial resources.
- Enhance landscape learning. As ecosystem and landscape restoration takes off across Africa, demand is rising for knowledgeable practitioners. People are gaining expertise by enrolling in restoration education programs packed with opportunities to practice skills in the field. Options range from innovative and interactive learning methodologies to self-paced and blended courses, digital learning, on-the-ground experiences and more.
- Leverage sustainable finance for local landscapes and people. One of Africa’s biggest challenges remains ensuring a steady flow of climate and landscape finance to local communities. The continent faces an annual sustainable finance shortfall of USD 400 billion and receives only 3.6% of global climate finance. Africans are participating in forums to push the conversation on channeling sustainable finance to communities, shaping projects to boost their bankability, leveraging small grants for locally-led initiatives and exploring both public and private finance opportunities.
“Africa’s landscapes and communities are increasingly becoming points for developing, testing and scaling innovative landscape solutions, programs, technologies and business models by various actors, both collaboratively and competitively. It is critical to create a space to connect various stakeholders to share knowledge on solutions and tools and hold dialogues on emerging developments to ensure that they are fit for purpose, aligned with local priorities and sustainable – and that is what GLF is doing in Africa,” said Amos Amanubo, Africa Regional Coordinator at the GLF.
Ever since its founding in 2013, the GLF has fostered constructive dialogue and knowledge-sharing among African stakeholders at all levels. In the past two years, it has organized a series of Africa-focused regional and global events, including GLF Nairobi 2023, GLF Africa 2024, OFAC Hybrid Forum and the Investment Case Symposia. It has also developed initiatives such as the GLF Photography Awards, Social Media Ambassadors program, community watch parties, the new Global AI Hub and learning opportunities such as the Restoration Education platform, as well as strong networks of community and youth-led initiatives such as the GLFx chapter network and the Restoration Stewards program.
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NOTE TO EDITORS
- Learn more about African action, numbers and stories here
- For more information, photos or to arrange interviews, contact Kelly Quintero (k.quintero@cifor-icraf.org).
ABOUT THE GLF
The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) is the world’s largest knowledge-led platform on integrated land use, connecting people with a shared vision to create productive, profitable, equitable & resilient landscapes. It is led by the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), in collaboration with its co-founders UNEP and the World Bank, and its charter members. Learn more at www.globallandscapesforum.org.
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