Why conservationists want social protection goals in climate finance

Last week, at the Global Landscapes Forum held in Kenya, conservation experts called for the wider integration of social protection programming with biodiversity goals. Organized by the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry, or CIFOR-ICRAF, the event was themed “Greening the African Horizon,” and focused on how Africa can navigate the climate crisis. One of the projects showcased in the forum was Trees on Farm for Biodiversity, a German government-funded program implemented by CIFOR-ICRAF. The seven-year program, which just ended, was implemented in Uganda and Rwanda among other countries, and sought to build awareness among governments of the potential of trees on farms for meeting both development objectives and biodiversity commitments. Given the success of the pilot, members of CIFOR-ICRAF believe that with more funding available for biodiversity commitments, adding social protection goals to climate finance can achieve both conservation and social protection goals simultaneously. Funding for restoration — the AFR100 initiative The African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, or AFR100, is one of the biggest multicountry restoration projects on the continent today. AFR100 was launched in December 2015 at the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 21, in Paris by organizations including the African Union Development Agency, or AUDA-NEPAD, World Resources Institute, Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, or BMZ, and the World Bank. AFR100 brings together 34 countries that have joined the initiative and pledged to put a total of 129 million hectares of degraded land under restoration. Under AFR100 for example, Kenya has pledged to restore 5.1 million hectares and currently has 2.7 million hectares under restoration. Mali, which pledged to restore 10 million hectares, has 0.5 million hectares currently under restoration. In terms of funding, Anja Gassner, the Europe director at CIFOR-ICRAF, told Devex that it is hard to come by exact figures but in the last five years alone, the AFR100 and the Bonn Challenge have generated an additional $10 billion into sub-Saharan Africa. The Bonn Challenge was started by the German government in 2011 and is an initiative whereby countries commit acreages of degraded land to restore. So while there is money for the restoration, Gassner doesn't believe it has led to the expected results: “What can we show for it?” she stated. Restoration and social protection This year, African countries and other low- and middle-income countries are pushing for $1.3 trillion to be committed annually by high-income nations to low- and middle-income countries as climate finance through the new collective quantified goal, or NCQG. This will be negotiated, and hopefully agreed upon, at the U.N. climate conference, COP 29, in Baku, Azerbaijan. Even as African countries demand for this increase in climate finance from the previous $100 billion annual goal, funds for restoration continue to be channeled mainly through AFR100. Now, CIFOR-ICRAF experts are suggesting that the funds earmarked for restoration should be channeled through social protection programming for communities living in poverty, while achieving conservation goals. Efforts to date to cushion vulnerable communities through government-led social protection, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are “low, and plagued by significant gender gaps” according to a policy brief by UN Women. There are still 556 million people in sub-Saharan Africa living in multidimensional poverty, of which 82% live in rural areas, according to a 2022 report by the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative and the U.N. Development Programme. A few countries have adopted social protection programs but the region is generally characterized by low levels of social protection, according to the World Bank. In order to make restoration work toward providing a safety net for those most in need, Gassner believes in collaborating across sectors. “What we have been trying to do, is to bring different people from the different ministries, from the different agencies, and, of course, the farmers into a room and just talk about it and say, ‘How do we get there?’ And that conversation hasn't happened,” she said. Yet with the Trees for Biodiversity project ending, things are changing, Gassner conceded. CIFOR-ICRAF is currently working with an advisory group in Uganda and Rwanda. This group comprises “highly influential national professionals that are helping us to develop a policy recommendation and a strategy to introduce the results and the idea of linking work done by farmers in restoration projects to labor payments,” Gassner said. The consultations are in the final stages, she added. Social protection structures to help conservation objectives The Rwandan government has a working example of using a social protection structure to achieve conservation objectives. It is the only country in Africa with a successful social protection program, according to Egide Karuranga, a consultant with CIFOR-ICRAF. The program has had restoration programs undertaken through it. Karuranga said that Rwanda used the Vision 2020 Umurenge Programme, or VUP, an integrated local development program that gives conditional cash transfers to the poor for undertaking road building or environmental conservation programs. “Last year, they reached 346,000 households, which is about 1.8 million people. That is 10% of the population of Rwanda,” he said. In addition, Rwanda has committed 2 million hectares of degraded land for restoration under the AFR100 and currently has 71 projects running. Linking these two could work — the government has funds available for restoration and also has existing social protection programs. “What we're up against is that there's certainly a lot of money flowing around for restoration. After the Kunming-Montreal framework, we assume there's going to be a lot of money around for that. What we are saying is you've already got things in place, then you could actually spend this money through your existing structures,” said Philip Dobie, a senior fellow at CIFOR-ICRAF. The Kunming-Montreal framework is an outcome of the 2022 U.N. Biodiversity Conference which seeks to achieve the global goal of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. Gassner ran a CIFOR-ICRAF pilot project in Rwanda where farmers were paid based on the survival rate of the trees they planted in their farms. She explained that reforestation programs can be unsuccessful due to the fact that trees are planted and left without care. In this case, there was a conditional payment for planting and managing the trees, if the trees survived its second drought. “We then worked out what would be a fair payment. And we set up a goal. We said, everybody who achieves a 70% survival rate will get a pig,” she said. Gassner believes that adopting the restoration programs to social protection programs will be quick. “You could take the money that is coming in for restoration, put it through social protection, you boost the amount of money going through your social protection scheme, and you get environmental benefits,” she said. Kenya is among a few other countries in Africa that have adopted social protection policies that focus on extending coverage to all, according to an International Labour Organization study. The government-run Hunger Safety Net Programme which was initially funded by the U.K. government, is an unconditional cash transfer program. HSNP is intended to reach the lowest-income and most vulnerable households in eight counties. However, unlike in Rwanda, Kenya hasn’t aligned its social protection with its restoration activities. Following the success in Rwanda, Karuranga is optimistic about such an integration, saying that it is worth trying. Gassner shares Karuranga’s sentiments. “When you combine these things, you will have a better environmental outcome because people will take care of the trees and you also benefit them directly,” she said.