CONFERENCE RESOURCES
Consolidating the Kenyan restoration movement
Background
The Kenya National Landscape Restoration Scaling Conference 2021 successfully catalyzed action for landscape restoration supporting a restoration movement in the country. It was held in the context of a dire need to create synergies among the numerous, yet fragmented restoration efforts and given the government’s restoration-related commitments. A summary of the key outcomes of the conference can be found here.
More than a year later, this follow-up conference will showcase this restoration movement, take stock of the progress made to achieve the agreed action plans from the 2021 conference, and seek agreement and commitments from actors in the restoration space on the next steps to consolidate the movement. This includes the next steps to implement the Forest and Landscape Restoration Implementation Plan (FOLAREP) 2022 -2027.
Conference objectives
The Kenya National Landscape Restoration Scaling Conference 2022 will be held virtually on the 24th and 25th of November 2022. The conference seeks to:
- Showcase progress made since the 2021 conference in achieving agreed action plans and the creation of a restoration movement
- Bring together stakeholders working in the restoration space to agree on key actions to support the implementation of the Forest and Landscape Restoration Implementation Plan (FOLAREP) 2022- 2027 and monitoring framework, including required policy adjustments.
- Discuss incentives and avenues for resource mobilization to support and scale restoration projects, particularly efforts led by the community, youth, women, faith-based actors, and the private sector.
- Explore the role of existing practices and approaches to support the scaling of restoration efforts in agricultural, forest, and rangelands.
- Showcase approaches and models to enhance the inclusion of children, youth, and women in restoration efforts and launch a capacity strengthening program for youth, women and faith actors involved in restoration.
Conference themes
The conference has three main themes:
Theme one: Landscape restoration approaches, practices, planning, and monitoring
- Showcase the Forest and Landscape Restoration Implementation Plan (FOLAREP) along with the National Forest and Landscape Restoration Monitoring Framework and discuss how actors (state and non-state) can support its implementation.
- Highlight and discuss practices and approaches that can be used to support and scale landscape restoration.
- Spotlight the capacity-building efforts undertaken, discuss the way forward, and the next steps in building partnerships for a capacity-building movement for landscape restoration in Kenya.
- Summarise the activities of the action groups specifically the Kenya rangelands restoration and conservation action group, the Faith-based restoration action group, and the youth and women inclusion in restoration action group.
Theme two: Youth and women inclusion in restoration
- Explore opportunities for supporting the inclusion of children in restoration starting from existing efforts like 4K clubs, environmental clubs, wildlife clubs, etc. through influencing their curricula and capacity building.
- Showcase models or approaches for youth and women inclusion in restoration efforts
- Launch the youth restoration network.
- Launch the capacity strengthening program for youth, women, and faith actors in Kenya.
Theme three: Faith-based restoration
- Share the work of the faith-based restoration action group, particularly the strategy for faith-based regreening in Kenya.
- Showcase the work of faith communities and institutions in restoration highlighting bottlenecks and discuss opportunities to solve them.
- Highlight how a blend of faith-based and traditional beliefs can be used to promote landscape restoration.
- Present the documentation of the various actions by a variety of faith actors in Kenya.
- Present the guide on how to promote landscape restoration with faith leaders
Conference format
The conference will be held on the 24th and 25th November 2022. A series of four pre-conference thematic webinars will be held in the run-up to the main conference to provide a space to discuss the themes further and build momentum for the conference.
The pre-conference thematic webinars planned are:
- Finance Options for Restoration
- Accelerating restoration action through youth and women
- Faith-based restoration in Kenya
- Restoring Kenya’s Rangelands: the way forward
Kenya National Landscape Restoration Scaling Conference 2021
The Kenya National Landscape Restoration Scaling Conference 2021 was a success and helped to catalyze action for landscape restoration, which supported a restoration movement in the country. It was held in the context of an urgent need to create synergies among the numerous, yet fragmented efforts of restoration, as well as in consideration of the government’s commitments related to restoration.
The conference resources can be accesed here.