WEBINAR
0900–1030 EDT, 1300–1430 UTC, 1600–1730 EAT, 2000–2130 WIB
Thursday 14 May 2020
Nairobi, Kenya. 11 May 2020 — Africa is faced with potentially devastating challenges owing to the climate crisis, population growth, urban expansion and, not least, millions of hectares of degraded agricultural and forest land: more than 80% of Sub-Saharan Africans depend on land-based activities for their livelihoods, yet two-thirds of land in Africa is already degraded to some degree.
Leading experts in land restoration from major global organizations will discuss the challenges in a webinar, 1600–1730 EAT (0900–1030 EDT), Thursday 14 May 2020, in the context of the massive Regreening Africa programme.
Garo Batmanian, Global Lead for Forests, Landscapes, and Biodiversity, World Bank; Susan Chomba, project manager of Regreening Africa, World Agroforestry (ICRAF); Mathew Reddy, senior private sector specialist, Global Environment Facility; Timothy H. Brown, senior natural resources management specialist, World Bank; and Ioannis Vasileiou, agricultural economist, World Bank will provide an overview of the challenges, discuss progress Regreening Africa has made and the relevance for similar landscapes in Africa and beyond.
Regreening Africa is a European Union-funded, five-year programme that seeks to reverse land degradation among 500,000 households on 1 million hectares in eight countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal and Somalia.
By incorporating trees into croplands, communal lands and pastoral areas, regreening efforts aim to improve the livelihoods and food security of hundreds of thousands of smallholders and increase their resilience to the worst impact of the climate crisis.
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About the speakers
Garo Batmanian, Global Lead for Forests, Landscapes, and Biodiversity, World Bank
Batmanian manages several global programmes on forests, landscapes and biodiversity for the Bank. He joined in 2004 and worked as a senior environmental specialist in Brazil. He was the Bank’s lead environment specialist for China and Mongolia, heading up initiatives on air pollution, forests, biodiversity conservation and climate change. Earlier in his career, he was the Latin America and Caribbean Program Director of WWF USA and the first CEO of WWF Brazil. He is also the founder of Forest Stewardship Council Brazil and led the process of developing national standards for natural forest management in the Amazon and for plantations. He holds a PhD in Ecology from the University of Georgia, USA.
Susan Chomba, Project Manager, Regreening Africa, World Agroforestry (ICRAF)
Chomba is a social scientist with over 15 years of experience in governance, policies and institutions in forestry, agriculture and rural development in Africa. She works on climate-change policies, land tenure, equity, vulnerability and gender. She holds a PhD in forest governance from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark; a double MSc in Agricultural Development and Agroforestry from the universities of Copenhagen and Bangor, UK, respectively; and a BSc in forestry from Moi University, Kenya. Chomba is based at World Agroforestry (ICRAF) in Nairobi where she leads the Regreening Africa mega-project.
Mathew Reddy, Senior Private Sector Specialist, Global Environment Facility
Reddy supports private-sector engagement for the Facility. He began his career in Australia, responsible for private investment, mostly from banks and resources companies, in land restoration and reforestation with Landcare. He became managing director for environmental markets — trading in carbon, water and ecosystems — where he developed forest-carbon methodologies and business models to support farmers under compliance and voluntary markets in the Asia Pacific. Following the collapse of the carbon markets, he was appointed CEO of the International River Foundation, supporting global collaboration in river-basin management while also serving on governance boards for hydropower, wetlands and conservation. Most recently, he was the director for climate smart agriculture and the forest solutions group at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in Geneva where he managed global teams responsible for private-sector activities in support of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Timothy H. Brown, Senior Natural Resource Management Specialist, World Bank
Brown works with the Environment and Natural Resources Global Practice on PROGREEN, a multi-donor trust fund; the Global Environment Facility’s Food Systems, Landscapes and Restoration Global Impact Program; and the International Financing Facility for Forests. He is an environmental economist with experience in forest policy and management, climate policy and finance, natural resource governance, and ‘green, brown and blue’ issues. Before joining the global unit, he worked in Indonesia and in Africa, where he was responsible for developing climate and forest engagement in key countries, coordinating work on natural capital accounting, and working with country teams on forest and landscape investments.
Ioannis Vasileiou, Agricultural Economist, World Bank
Vasileiou works in the Agriculture and Global Food Practice Engagement Unit, particularly, on climate smart agriculture and the FOLUR Impact Program. Vasileiou joined the Bank in October 2015 as a secondee from the International Food Policy Research Institute. Prior to that, he was a science officer for the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. His past work has focused on sustainability and climate change, such as in the Cabinet of the Commissioner for Environment at the European Commission and at the United Nations, including work with the Climate Change Support Team of the UN Secretary General, as well as with the non-profit sector.
This virtual event is part of a monthly series of webinars hosted by the Global Wildlife Program, a seven-year programme funded by the Global Environment Facility, developed as a response to the growing crisis of illicit wildlife trade.
