Land degradation undermines the livelihoods, food security, health and well-being of everyone, but rural and isolated populations are often at heightened risk. Through years of implementing landscape restoration activities, it has become clear that initiatives and interventions are only successful and sustainable if they are embedded in local communities. A comprehensive participation of local stakeholders in the planning and implementation phases of restoration has great potential to empower local structures and communities, especially women and youth, to become an irreplaceable core of ecosystem restoration. In this session, GIZ and partners from its Forests4Future and Large-scale Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) in Africa programme showcase why large-scale restoration initiatives such as the AFR100 must harness this potential!