Strengthening cooperation at the global level for greater impact on the ground
14/05/2024
Now in its third year of implementation, the GEF-7 Dryland Sustainable Landscapes Impact Program continues its journey, with activities ongoing in nine out of 11 countries and coordination structures in full swing.
To effectively address the need for flexibility and continuous adjustment, and to ensure that different actors act jointly and according to the demands expressed by countries, the Global Coordination team met with executing partners – the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – in the closing quarters of 2023 to discuss work planning, collaboration, and improvement of the overall governance structure.
Similarly, a meeting held in January 2024 with colleagues from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) provided the opportunity to re-connect, explore synergies, and identify leveraging opportunities, thus paving the way forward for a more harmonious and strategic collaboration across multiple fronts. This includes the Great Green Wall Initiative in Southern Africa, also in view of a possible thematic and geographic expansion of the programme.
Engage, learn and inspire – MEV-CAM and DSL-IP reinforce their partnership
On 16 January 2024, the Making Every Voice Count for Adaptive Management (MEV-CAM) initiative and the DSL-IP Global Coordination teams met in Rome, Italy to reinforce internal coordination structures for enhanced collaboration and develop a joint road map for stronger country engagement.
A key DSL-IP ally, MEV-CAM is a knowledge management initiative that uses process documentation and participatory tools to both monitor and evaluate change and document sustainable land and forest management practices. MEV-CAM trains program participants on using participatory video approaches to upscale the work achieved in the GEF-6 Resilient Food Systems (RFS).
For instance, between 2020-2022, MEV-CAM together with the FAO South-South and Triangular Cooperation division (PST) and overall guidance provided by the DSL-IP Global Coordination Project helped identify the country core themes through in-person assessments and trainings. Since 2020, training has been delivered to over 100 participants in 18 countries, including DSL-IP countries. In 2020, five baseline video assessments were produced in Angola, Botswana, Kazakhstan, Malawi and Namibia. A total of 25 good practices have been defined from the GEF-6 RFS project for possible upscaling by the DSL-IP, and two good practices identified for advocacy. All of these assessments and trainings share facilitation techniques to tackle gender issues.
This partnership will now be further strengthened, with the MEV-CAM process documentation placing an emphasis on practices around the DSL-IP core themes. Under the DSL-IP approach, each country is paired with a green value chain/income-generating opportunity (core theme) that refers to an evidence-based land management system. Through capacity building and technical backstopping offered by FAO and executing partners, the country projects will address context-specific challenges and priorities, whilst recognizing the importance of transboundary commitments towards dryland restoration and land degradation neutrality. These sustainable land and forest management good practices will be scaled up sustainably with a gender responsive focus while lessons learnt will be shared with other countries facing similar management challenges with MEV-CAM support. Core theme examples range from Integrated Food and Energy Systems [IFES] for Malawi, FSC-certified charcoal for Namibia, Sustainable beekeeping for Tanzania as well as sustainable pasture management to name a few.
By specifically targeting the programme landscape pockets, MEV-CAM activities will build on existing data and information collected by the DSL-IP through a wide array of ground surveys, assessments and behavioural change analysis, all of which present common management challenges and country needs.
In 2024, the MEV-CAM process documentation is expected to be implemented in at least two DSL-IP countries, starting with Malawi. To begin with, a virtual workshop will be organized to introduce the MEV-CAM innovative approach, and to establish the baseline situation. The practices baseline will then be documented though a ‘’learning by doing’’ approach also involving Forest and Farm Producer Organizations. Insight and lessons learned will then be identified for up, out and deep scaling.
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