Restore 100 million hectares of land in Africa by 2030
Welcome to the AFR100 – The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative is a country-led effort to restore Africa’s degraded and deforested land. Together, we are realizing the world’s greatest restoration opportunity!
AFR100 Goals
Through its network of restoration champions and technical and financial partners AFR100 aims to restore health to our continent’s land, so that people and nature can thrive, through:
Accelerating restoration to enhance food security
Increasing climate change resilience and mitigation
Combating rural poverty
34
countries have committed to the initiative
130.
millions hectares are already committed for restoration
Forest Landscape Restoration
Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) is the process of regaining ecological functionality and enhancing human well-being across deforested or degraded forest landscapes. Restoration is about more than just planting trees – it is about restoring the whole landscape to meet the present and future needs of people and biodiversity.
Agroforestry
Mixing trees and shrubs with agricultural crops to improve the productivity and ecological function of agricultural land.
Assisted natural regeneration
Helping trees and native vegetation naturally recover by eliminating barriers and threats to their growth, leaning on local knowledge of the land.
Mangrove restoration
Regrowing mangroves in coastal ecosystems to protect communities, safeguard biodiversity, and store carbon.
Reforestation
Planting and maintaining trees across a deforested landscape with little or no remaining forest cover.
Riparian restoration
Reestablishing vegetation along a river, lake, wetland, or other water body to improve its ecological function.
Silvopasture
Adding trees to deforested pasture to improve the productivity and health of land managed by pastoralist communities.
Best Practices for Forest & Landscape Restoration
These best practices, identified by IUCN and WRI, help ensure that restoration is successful, lasting and beneficial.
Involve trees and other woody plants in landscapes where appropriate
Scale up successes from individual sites
Restore functionality, ecosystem services, not “original” forest cover
Balance local needs with national and global priorities
Employ a range of restoration strategies
Adapt to circumstances over time
Avoid strategies that lead to the conversion of natural ecosystems
Monitoring: How to Promote and Measure Landscape Restoration
AFR100 is a partnership between more than 30 African countries committed to restoring 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. But how will those countries measure restoration? Is it possible to know what’s working and how to develop best practices?
That’s all possible – through monitoring frameworks. Thanks to advanced satellite technology, improved networks between local people and technical experts, and a growing sphere of science devoted to solving tough landscape problems, monitoring systems for both governments and local restoration implementers are increasingly accessible.
Read moreNotes from Experts
We have thousands of entrepreneurs and community-based organizations ready to take on the land degradation challenge in Africa. Let’s invest in them and provide the required support to move the AFR100 movement forward.
Mamadou Diakhite
Acting Head of Environmental Sustainability, AUDA-NEPAD
The African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), World Resources Institute (WRI), Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the World Bank launched the AFR100 initiative at COP21 in Paris, with AUDA-NEPAD acting as the Secretariat.
Monitoring is fundamental to the success of this restoration movement in Africa; we are monitoring land restoration to bring transparency on progress, identify changes we need to make, credit the local restoration champions and make informed decisions on where we need to invest more to achieve our collective restoration goals.
Bernadette Arakwiye
Manager of AFR100 Programs, World Resources Institute Africa
The World Resources Institute supports restoration monitoring in AFR100 through pioneering new approaches for tracking land restoration progress at various scales (project, landscape, national and regional), documenting and encouraging adoption of restoration monitoring best practices and building a community of restoration monitoring practitioners for peer-to-peer learning and problem solving.
Entrepreneurs and Community-Based Organizations across Africa have demonstrated promising pathways for reversing land degradation. The Land Accelerator equips entrepreneurs with knowledge and skills to tackle this issue by building economically viable, sustainable businesses that safeguard our planet and provide livelihoods for millions of people.
Samuel Kabiru
Manager, The Land Accelerator, World Resources Institute Africa
The Global Restoration Initiative at World Resources Institute is supporting restoration champions across Africa by brokering and delivering the needed capacity and capital to accelerate action on the ground and meet regional land restoration goals.
Forest landscape restoration isn’t just about planting trees: it’s about restoring ecological functions across whole landscapes and enhancing human well-being across deforested and degraded landscapes, so that people and nature can thrive together.
Benjamin Uchena Akobundu
Programme Officer for AFR100- AUDA, AUDA-NEPAD
The African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), World Resources Institute (WRI), Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the World Bank launched the AFR100 initiative at COP21 in Paris, with AUDA-NEPAD acting as the Secretariat.
African farmers can expect $7-$30 in return for every dollar invested in healing the land. The AFR100 is investing billions into restoration projects across the continent, helping landscapes, the economy and communities thrive.
Teko Nhlapho
Communication & Advocacy Officer and African Union Land Accelerator Africa Lead, AUDA-NEPAD
The African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), World Resources Institute (WRI), Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the World Bank launched the AFR100 initiative at COP21 in Paris, with AUDA-NEPAD acting as the Secretariat.
The Bezos Earth Fund has earmarked $1 billion for restoration to be spent by 2030. We believe Africa is one of the most important places to start. The challenge is to channel more, and more varied, finance—from grants to loans to carbon finance—to the pioneering entrepreneurs and community leaders restoring land across the continent. Together we can make the momentum of Africa’s restoration movement unstoppable.
Andrew Steer
President and CEO, Bezos Earth Fund
The Bezos Earth Fund is a $10 billion grant commitment by Jeff Bezos to fund scientists, activists, NGOs and others to help drive climate and nature solutions. By allocating funds creatively, wisely, and boldly, the Bezos Earth Fund has the potential for transformative influence in this decisive decade.
As African countries continue to encounter increased occurrence of climate disasters and biodiversity loss, restoring degraded lands and forests is a major step towards achieving climate resilience for both nature and people. Engaging youth and women, often at the forefront of innovation and entrepreneurship, could drive innovation and create new opportunities linked to forest and landscaped restoration for Africa’s economic growth and development.
TUMEO Tangu
Forests, Landscapes and Livelihoods Programme Officer at IUCN
Partners
Technical Partners
In 2017, technical partners and country partners will establish 'task forces' to tackle barriers to implementation and generate successful approaches that can be replicated throughout the partnership. These task forces will better leverage the diverse and extensive experience that partners bring to AFR100.
Financial Partners
AFR100 will help to translate ambitious commitments into action and results on the ground with support from private sector investors, development banks and bilateral and multilateral funders. AFR100 will leverage a variety of financial instruments, including grants, equity investments, loans, risk management guarantees and funds for specific interventions.
African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD)
The AUDA-NEPAD was established in 2010 to integrate the then New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) into African Union (AU) structures and processes. In 2019, NEPAD became the African Union Development Agency. AUDA-NEPAD is the Secretariat for AFR100.
