The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that assists countries in economic and industrial development. It is headquartered at the UN Office in Vienna, Austria, with a permanent presence in over 60 countries. As of April 2019, UNIDO comprises 170 member states, which together set the organization's policies, programs, and principles through the biannual General Conference.
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is an economic development program of the African Union. NEPAD was adopted at the 37th session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in July 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia. NEPAD aims to provide an overarching vision and policy framework for accelerating economic co-operation and integration among African countries.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a mulitlateral environmental fund that provides grants and blended finance for projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), mercury, sustainable forest management, food security, and sustainable cities in developing countries. It is the largest source of multilateral funding for biodiversity globally, and distributes more than $1 billion a year on average to address inter-related environmental challenges.
The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) is a non-profit scientific research organization that conducts research on the use and management of forests with a focus on tropical forests in developing countries. CIFOR, which merged with World Agroforestry on Jan. 1, 2019, is the forestry and agroforestry research center of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a network of 15 research centers around the world that focus on agricultural research for sustainable development, working closely with governments and other partners to help develop evidence-based solutions to problems related to sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.
The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) was established in 1983 under the Lomé Convention between the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and EU member states. Since 2000 CTA has operated within the framework of the ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement with a mission to “strengthen policy and institutional capacity development and information and communication management capacities of ACP agricultural and rural development organisations. It assists such organisations in formulating and implementing policies and programmes to reduce poverty, promote sustainable food security, preserve the natural resource base and thus contribute to building self-reliance in ACP rural and agricultural development.”. The centre is closed in 2020, after the end of the Cotonou Agreement and the subsequent end of its financing.
The African Development Bank Group or Banque Africaine de Développement (BAD) is a multilateral development finance institution headquartered in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, since September 2014. The AfDB is a financial provider to African governments and private companies investing in the regional member countries (RMC).
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, often shortened to simply GIZ, is the main German development agency headquartered in Bonn and Eschborn that provides services in the field of international development cooperation and international education work. It is the organization's self-declared goal to deliver effective solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions.
The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) is a non-profit, non-governmental international network of forest scientists, headquartered in Austria.The aim of the organization is to promote worldwide cooperation in scientific studies embracing the whole field of research related to forests and their use and sustainable development. In 2019 IUFRO counted 630 Member Organizations worldwide.
The Great Green Wall or Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel is a project led by the African Union, initially conceived as a way to combat desertification in the Sahel region and hold back expansion of the Sahara, by planting a wall of trees stretching across the entire Sahel. The modern green wall has since evolved into a program promoting water harvesting techniques, greenery protection and improving indigenous land use techniques, aimed at creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across North Africa.
The year 2011 was declared the International Year of Forests by the United Nations to raise awareness and strengthen the sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests for the benefit of current and future generations.
The United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) is a high-level intergovernmental policy forum. The forum includes all United Nations member states and permanent observers, the UNFF Secretariat, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, Regional Organizations and Processes and Major Groups.
The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County (LCSLO) is a local nonprofit organization in California that has served San Luis Obispo (SLO) County since 1984. Through voluntary and collaborative efforts the LCSLO works to protect and enhance lands having important scenic, agricultural, habitat and cultural values for the benefit of people and wildlife.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) is recognized as the largest, private nature conservation and restoration organization in Canada. Using evidence-based solutions as a guiding principle in selecting locations to conserve, since its founding in 1962 the non-profit, charitable organization and its partners have protected 15 million hectares of ecologically important lands and waters across Canada, along with habitat for more than a quarter of the country’s species at risk. With offices in each province, NCC works at a local level with a wide array of stakeholders and partners to secure parcels of land.
The Irrigated Rice Research Consortium (IRRC) focuses on agricultural research and extension in irrigated rice-based ecosystems. In partnership with national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) and the private sector, the IRRC provides a platform for the dissemination and adoption of natural resource management (NRM) technologies in Asian countries. The IRRC is currently active in 11 countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. It aims to strengthen NARES-driven interdisciplinary research, link research and extension, facilitate rice farmers' uptake of technological innovations, and enable environmentally sound rice production to expand to feed growing populations.
The Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) is a non-profit initiative to promote the conservation and responsible management of the Congo Basin's tropical forests. The project aims to improve the techniques and information sharing of involved organizations. It is led by the United States and sponsored by more than 40 international governments and investors.
Forest restoration is defined as “actions to re-instate ecological processes, which accelerate recovery of forest structure, ecological functioning and biodiversity levels towards those typical of climax forest” i.e. the end-stage of natural forest succession. Climax forests are relatively stable ecosystems that have developed the maximum biomass, structural complexity and species diversity that are possible within the limits imposed by climate and soil and without continued disturbance from humans. Climax forest is therefore the target ecosystem, which defines the ultimate aim of forest restoration. Since climate is a major factor that determines climax forest composition, global climate change may result in changing restoration aims.
The Bonn Challenge is a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of the world's degraded and deforested lands by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. It was hosted and launched by Germany and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Bonn on 2 September 2011, in collaboration with the Global Partnership on Forest/Landscape Restoration and targets delivery on the Rio Conventions and other outcomes of the 1992 Earth Summit. As at 2013 over 20 million hectares of land had been pledged for restoration from countries including Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Rwanda, and the United States. South Korea, Costa Rica, Pakistan, China, Rwanda and Brazil have embarked on successful landscape restoration programmes.
The Ibero-American Model Forest Network (RIABM) is the regional network representing the 29 Model Forests across the Caribbean, Latin American and Spain.
The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) is a multi-stakeholder forum dedicated to promoting the landscape approach.
The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration runs from 2021 to 2030. Similar to other nature related international decades, its purpose is to promote the United Nation's environmental goals. Specifically, to facilitate global cooperation for the restoration of degraded and destroyed ecosystems. Along with fostering efforts to combat climate change, safeguard biodiversity, food security, and water supply. While much focus is on promoting restoration activity by national governments, the UN also wishes to promote such efforts from other actors, ranging from the private sector and NGOs to regular individuals.
