Landscape Partnerships (LPs) are increasingly seen as an inclusive, integrated solution to managing nature-positive and livelihood challenges
There would thus seem to be great opportunities for LPs to become a central feature of nature-based climate solutions, green growth and post-COVID recovery plans under development. However, most national and state institutions are set up to provide support – whether for technical assistance, enabling conditions, communications, (green) market development or financing – designed for the top-down, sectorally siloed modes of the past. Thus there is a high risk that LPs will be bypassed by these new initiatives.
On March 31st, EcoAgriculture Partners, the GALLOP initiative, Columbia University and Cornell University* jointly convened a virtual workshop on Institutionalizing Support for Integrated Landscape Management to tackle this critical “piece of the puzzle” for landscapes worldwide. The 21 participants, from 13 countries, all had deep experience in providing support to Landscape Partnerships in diverse contexts across the world.
They generously shared their experiences and debated possible models for providing more effective external institutional support to LPs. The group agreed that several vital elements need to be considered:
- Support and respect for bottom-up and local ownership, through impartial coordination and information provision
- Institutional arrangements that are clearly mandated, contextualized, coordinated and accessible
- Strengthening existing institutions, rather than creating new ones
- Long-term development strategies that will ensure longevity, self-sustenance, facilitation support, capacity building, and coordination of resources to support LP plans
A policy brief summarizing the key insights and recommendations from the workshop will be published soon. Meanwhile, many of the workshop insights aligned with perspectives from the recent FAO-EcoAgriculture Partners convened Independent Dialogue for the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit.
*Organizers: EcoAgriculture (Sara Scherr, Seth Shames, Juan Ramos, Aziza Moore); GALLOP (Bhushan Sethi); Columbia University (Ruth DeFries); Cornell University/EcoAg (Louise Buck)