Launching a continent-wide initiative with community leaders at the helm

Restore Local plans to restore three of Africa’s most vital landscapes – the Greater Rusizi Basin, the Great Rift Valley, and the Cocoa Belt – by investing in local community-led restoration. The partnership between WRI and AFR100 will demonstrate a blueprint for capacity-building, financing, policy change and monitoring, and then transition to scaling it across all 33 AFR100 member countries. The hope is that this four-year initiative will demonstrate effectiveness across these three landscapes and eventually, change the overall trajectory of locally-led restoration across Africa.

Why Rippleworks Invested:

65% of Africa’s farmland has been degraded, with dire consequences for the climate. This is a serious problem for the 70% of Africans who rely on land to provide food for their families and communities. As degraded soils grow tired from unsustainable farming and grazing practices, farmers struggle to produce enough food and biodiversity is lost at unprecedented rates. Incomes shrink, while hunger and malnutrition grow. Less productive land builds pressure on farmers to clear additional land, accelerating the cycle of degradation.