Land restoration for post-COVID-19 rural and indigenous women’s empowerment and poverty reduction in Cameroon

 

This project seeks to inform policy and/or business practices that foster women and minority groups’ participation in, and benefits from, land restoration initiatives in a post-COVID-19 context. It considers a cross-section of hot spots for land restoration from three agro-ecological zones identified in Cameroon’s strategic framework. These zones cover the diversity of factors likely to play out for women’s empowerment in landscape restoration, including agroecology, land uses, land and tree tenure, the role of women and minority groups affected by culture and religion, history, and ongoing initiatives of land restoration, as well as the actors involved. The project will also target Cameroon’s restoration commitment, its National Adaptation Plan, and its nationally-determined contribution to limit global warming as set out in the Paris Agreement.

Once constraints and opportunities are identified, the project will promote gender-sensitive business and tree-based restoration options that would be less affected by COVID-19 or other pandemics. It will also inform strategies to scale up best land restoration strategies and practices through documentation and capacity building among key actors, including policy makers.