October, 2022
Dear Colleagues,
With two major international events on the horizon, we hope to see some of you at the Climate COP27 in November and Biodiversity COP15 in December.
November 16th is Biodiversity Day at COP27 and PROGREEN is excited to be featuring voices from developing countries through the presentation of achievements and challenges in integrated land and seascape management programs.
Earlier in the month on November 11th, PROGREEN will be supporting a presentation on Unlocking Solutions to Finance Ecosystem Restoration at the Global Landscapes Forum. Building on work undertaken by the Finance Task Force under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, the event will look at how we can scale up investments to meet global landscape restoration challenges.
Also in this newsletter, are details on eight new PROGREEN Knowledge Activities and a recap of several interesting events from the past few months, including a presentation on achieving gender equality in value chains.
Be sure to check out the story on PROGREEN-supported work with Dominica's indigenous peoples on tropical rainforest protection.
Please reach out to us if you have any questions or if you would like something featured in the next issue: progreen@worldbank.info
Happy reading!
The PROGREEN team
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Featured Events
Global Landscapes Forum
COP27
PROGREEN in Action
Working with Dominica's Indigenous Kalinago Community
Human Capital and Sustainable Forest Management in Panama
New Landscapes
EAP
Guatemala
Guyana
Kenya
Madagascar
Pakistan
Peru
Thailand
Past Events
Global Meeting of the Mountain Partnership
Achieving gender equity in value chains
Establishing Urban Green Corridors in Kazakstan
Integrated Catchment Planning in Lesotho
Stay Tuned
COP15
Finance Task Force Stocktake Report
In Case You Missed It
Gender Inclusion in Landscape Restoration for PROGREEN
World Bank Annual Meetings
Publications
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Unlocking Solutions to Finance Ecosystem Restoration
November 11th, 2022
Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt & Online
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Ecosystem restoration is key to achieving a net zero future, providing climate mitigation and adaptation opportunities and sustainable economic development. But with 20 percent of the world's land currently degraded, how do we scale up investments to meet these goals? |
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Building on the work of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, this event will discus the challenges and opportunities for increasing restoration finance, and discuss how collaboration between private financial entities, governments, multilaterals, and local communities can leverage innovative financial structures and growing payments for ecosystem services
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Integrating Landscape and Seascape Investments for Climate, Economy, People and Nature Benefits
November 16th, 2022
Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt & Online
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As part of Biodiversity Day at COP27 on November 16th, this panel discussion will feature voices from developing countries through the presentation of achievements in integrated land and seascape management programs, including work under the PROGREEN portfolio. Given the close inter-connections between land, coastal and marine ecosystems, an integrated management approach is essential to foster effective cross-sectoral planning and management of these ecosystems.
The event will showcase successful results achieved in Brazil, Ghana, Mozambique, Indonesia, and Pacific Islands. Additionally, the event will highlight success in cross sectoral collaboration across environment, agriculture, disaster risk management, and other sectors balancing coastal livelihoods and biodiversity conservation, climate variability and change, to address critical challenges in improving land and seascape outcomes.
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Working with Dominica's Indigenous Kalinago Community on the Protection of Tropical Rainforest |
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“Our forests embody the heart of the country’s well-being”
Cozier Frederick, Minister of the Environment, Rural Modernization, and Kalinago Upliftment
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Over 60% of Dominica is covered by forest. But as is the case worldwide, these valuable ecosystems are facing degradation and fragmentation from unsustainable development, agricultural expansion, pollution, sedimentation and erosion, and the introduction of invasive species. With the support of PROGREEN, the country recently released the National Forest Policy, its first formal policy for managing forest resources since 1949.
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The new National Forest Policy holds particular significance for the Indigenous Kalinago population, given their economic and cultural attachment to the country’s forests. The full story tells more about how the Kalinago have been, and continue to be, instrumental in forest planning thanks to the direct involvement of Kalinago Council representatives in the development and approval of the final Policy.
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Protecting and Fostering Human Capital and Sustainable Forest Management in Panama |
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In June, the World Bank Board of Directors approved a US$250 million loan to support Panama to protect and foster human capital accumulation during the COVID-19 crisis. The financing will support key institutional reforms to promote fiscal and environmental sustainability.
Financial support and technical assistance from PROGREEN has helped to promote policy reforms to advance forest protection and management, natural protected area management and sustainable agriculture in Panama, helping to pave the way for this financing.
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PROGREEN activities include analyzing and designing effective mechanisms to collaborate with local indigenous populations to sustainably manage forest and natural ecosystems; and reviewing the national legal framework on natural resource management to strengthen forest protection and management in a cross sectoral manner |
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PROGREEN supports countries with knowledge activities using a combination of analytical products, technical assistance, policy dialogue and relationship building to build the case and the consensus for greater ambition and scale toward sustainable landscape solutions. PROGREEN recently approved eight new Knowledge Activities:
East Asia Pacific: Security of Tenure in Forests of East & Asia and Pacific
Guatemala: Green Landscapes and Forests for Growth, Jobs and Resilience
Guyana: Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry Policy Assessment
Kenya: Landscape restoration and nature-based solutions in the Water Towers and Arid and Semi-arid Lands.
Madagascar: Adding Biodiversity and Water Assets to Landscape Management
Pakistan: Green Jobs Through Healthy Ecosystems
Peru: Peru Resilient Landscapes Management
Thailand: Technical Assistance to Improve Knowledge and Innovative Policy for Forest Fire Reduction in Northern Thailand
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How do we achieve gender equity in value chains?
September 13, 2022
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The importance of why gender equity is crucial throughout value chains is well on its way to being common knowledge. This is major progress indeed, but it also means that attention is now demanded for the next matter at hand: how it can be achieved?
Nuanced thinking on gender is required for all initiatives seeking to make the world’s favorite commodities, such as coffee, more sustainable. Women should not just be asked to participate in making decisions but also supported in actively doing so. Are proper trainings in place where needed and genuinely accessible to everyone? Are earnings and benefits shared equally across genders?
These questions and more were discussed on September 13th, when Patti Kristjanson, a scientific expert on gender and agriculture and part of the PROGREEN team, spoke with Constance Okollet, a Ugandan farmer who’s led numerous women’s empowerment initiatives, about pairing science and stories to elucidate tactical pathways for change.
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6th Global Meeting of the Mountain Partnership
September 27-29, 2022
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Every four years, the Mountain Partnership, a United Nations voluntary alliance of partners dedicated to mountain peoples and environments, holds a Global Meeting of its members, who come from diverse mountain countries across the world.
This year, Paola Agostini, Lead Natural Resources Management Specialist at the World Bank presented on PROGREEN-supported work in the mountainous border areas between Kazakstan and Uzbekistan, where the effects of land degradation are exacerbating high poverty rates.
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WORKSHOP: Establishing Urban Green Corridors in Kazakstan
September 27-29, 2022
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The World Bank is assisting the Akimat of Almaty and the Akimat of Almaty Oblast to establish a tree management plan and collaborative pest management approach, and develop an action plan to establish a green corridor to enhance green connections with the nearby national parks.
Financed by PROGREEN, the workshop and activities are part of the CA RESILAND program and was a chance to start discussions on urban forest landscape restoration on border cities.
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WORKSHOP: Integrated Catchment Planning in Lesotho
August 16-19, 2022
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In August, Lesotho's ReNOKA programme, with support from PROGREEN, hosted decision-makers and technical experts for the workshop: Incorporating the Ecosystem Service Approach into Integrated Catchment Planning. Four days in the classroom and the field introduced the tools needed to assess and value ecosystem services as part of the country’s commitment to implement integrated catchment management. The training was designed and delivered in collaboration with the Lesotho’s ICM Implementation Unit, within the Ministry of Water and delivered in partnership with Stanford University’s Natural Capital Project.
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15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD): Scheduled for December 7-19 in Montreal, Quebec, with China as President, COP15 will bring together governments from around the world to build international collaboration on an ambitious Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, including conserving a targeted 30 percent of lands and oceans by 2030. The framework provides a strategic vision and a global roadmap for the conservation, protection, restoration and sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems for the next decade. PROGREEN and the World Bank will participate at COP15, with further details to come.
Finance Task Force Stocktake Report: The Financial Task Force of the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration, chaired by the World Bank with support from PROGREEN, will produce catalytical research, tools, datasets, projects, and partnerships to increase awareness and foster political will in the public or private sectors to support scaling up investment in ecosystem restoration. Set to be released in November 2022, the Stock Take report is the first in a series of outputs of the FTF charting the course of the Task Force efforts through 2030.
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GENDER: A Certification System for Gender Inclusion in Landscape Restoration for PROGREEN |
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To address this objective, WOCAN will train project teams in selected countries to design activities and measure women’s empowerment results using the W+ Standard. Established in 2004, WOCAN is a women-led international membership network of women and men professionals and women’s associations.
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As part of the World Bank's Annual Meetings, this session looked at how countries get the financing they need to tackle climate change in this time of strained resources and overlapping crises. The session touched on many areas of relevance to PROGREEN's portfolio, including the potential to crowd in private finance for green transitions in developing countries as well as a short video showcasing how climate interventions in the Sahel could make a huge difference to lives and livelihoods.
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This edition features several new publications from PROGREEN-supported work in Uzbekistan:
Towards a Greener Economy in Uzbekistan: This report is an extended Country Environmental Assessment that identifies key issues and priorities for action as Uzbekistan transitions to a sustainable and inclusive market economy.
Uzbekistan Green Growth Policy Dialogues: Uzbekistan’s remarkable economic growth has been largely fueled by resource extraction and the mining and manufacturing sectors of the economy. Yet, this progress has come at a high price. Today, Uzbekistan recognizes a unique opportunity to overcome limits to growth under its current development pattern and to strengthen its economic competitiveness in a global marketplace that has become more climate and environmentally aware. The policy dialogue roundtable summaries presented in this compendium should inspire many other countries in Europe and Central Asia to follow Uzbekistan’s lead on this agenda.
Uzbekistan Forest Note: This Country Forest Note offers an in-depth picture of the forest sector of Uzbekistan, viewed through a forest landscape lens, and provides guidance to help define goals and identify opportunities for the continued development of the sector.
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Photos
Header: fotystory / Shutterstock
Fronteirs of Change: Global Landscapes Forum, 2022
COP27 logo: Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, 2022
Panama: Einer Garcia / Shutterstock
Rwanda: A'Melody Lee / World Bank
Dominica: David Svestka / Shutterstock
Kazakhstan: Katon Karagai National Park, East Kazakhstan (Yerbolat Shadrakhov/shutterstock)
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