Participatory governance is a new experience developed by Senegal in the process of organizing, setting up and managing its network of marine protected areas. This approach enables Senegal to better fulfill its commitments under international conventions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted in 1994, and to move from a regalian management model to a participatory process enabling it to transfer its powers to local authorities for the governance of their natural resources. This is an iterative and participatory process, encouraged and supported by the State to enable local communities to create and manage protected areas as a tool for the sustainable management of natural resources and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits.

Through a deliberate strategy of getting Parliament votes and media attention, the Murray Darling Basin Plan was passed through Federal Parliament in 2013. The Darling River is one of the largest in Australia and runs from north to south. The Darling River flows into the Murray River and had been reduced to a trickle at the mouth due to big ag’s water usage for irrigation. A consortium of community members spent 10 years getting this plan passed.

Sikkim is the first state in the world that is 100% organic: All of its farmland is certified organic. The policy implemented a phase-out of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and achieved a total ban on sale and use of chemical pesticides in the state. The transition has benefitted more than 66,000 farming families.

At the same time, Sikkim’s approach reaches beyond organic production and has proved truly transformational for the state and its citizens. Embedded in its design are socioeconomic aspects such as consumption and market expansion, cultural aspects as well as health, education, rural development and sustainable tourism. Sikkim’s tourism sector, for instance, benefited greatly from the new organic image: between 2014 and 2017, the number of tourists increased by over 50 per cent.

For their achievements, Sikkim’s policies were awarded the Future Policy Gold Award 2018, awarded by the World Future Council in partnership with the FAO and IFOAM – Organics International.

This solution addresses the complexities of having multiple jurisdictions and interests involved in co-managing a very large and diverse area. Today complementary management and planning provisions apply in virtually all marine waters within the GBR, irrespective of the jurisdictional responsibility.

Over 300 small hydropower plants (SHPP) have been planned for construction in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Even though there is a legal framework in BiH obliging the authorities and the investors to include the local community in the planning and decision-making processes, those regulations are consistently ignored. In Kruščica village, the consent of the locals, for building 4 SHPP planned on their river, was plagiarised. Those 4 SHPP were subsequently added into the spatial plan of the Vitez municipality, in which the Kruščica Mountain had been listed as a PA. Around 40 people signed their consent for the projects. The others didn’t have a clue what was going on (including 2,000 people is living in the village). A spontaneous gathering of citizens on the only bridge that leads to the construction site of SHPP has grown in the successful initiative. WWF Adria, together with partners, is supporting work of Eko-Bistro, organization established by Kruščica village inhabitants.

The TEEBAgriFood Initiative developed a unique comprehensive evaluation framework which allows assessing of impacts and externalities of agriculture and food systems – the environmental, health, social and cultural externalities, both positive and negative, and across value chains. It builds and illustrates the case for “systems” instead of “silo” thinking. This holistic approach of ‘true cost accounting’ allows decision makers to better compare different policies and the market to value agriculture and food more accurately. Thereby TEEBAgriFood will help to overcome barriers and effectively upscale agroecology and lead to more equitable agriculture and food systems. For its comprehensive approach providing opportunities to contribute to the majority of the SDGs and offering an effective system of ‘true cost accounting’, TEEBAgriFood was recognized with the Future Policy Vision Award 2018, awarded by the World Future Council in partnership with FAO and IFOAM – Organics International.

Soon after the first offshore oil field was discovered an intense public debate started in Mauritania about environmental and social risks of this sector. That led to the development of the Programme Biodiversity Oil and Gas, which aims, through a collaborative and integrated approach, at collating data in the marine environment, understanding the ecological consequences of human uses, designing and developing technical tools to monitor activities, and implementing corresponding policies. These activities are currently continued and consolidated with the GIZ “Co-management of marine, coastal and terrestrial resources” (CorMCT) program. 

Fauna & Flora International (FFI) recognises the need for landscape level approaches to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service preservation. The Landscape Level Assessment (LLA) approach uses and analyses evidence and spatial data to transparently assess the relative importance of different areas in their contribution towards conservation objectives. It is also used to estimate the socio-economic values of natural assets and to assess the vulnerability of biodiversity, ecological processes and land uses to current and future pressures.  

The Namibia LLA forms a live decision support tool comprising a series of maps, technical reports, communications pieces and database of information. These can be used to guide land use planning and to help decision makers understand the relative importance of biodiversity and ecological processes across a landscape.

In 2018 and 2019, IUCN with UN Women and the UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification) facilitated gender mainstreaming workshops in the Caribbean, the Philippines and Zambia to support development of gender-responsive Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) projects. These workshops, as part of the “Anchoring agreements on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the Rio Conventions” project, aimed to meet the specific needs of Parties toward meeting implementation of the UNCCD Gender Action Plan and national LDN targets. The workshops utilised a unique, participatory methodology, bringing together stakeholders from national and local governments, CSOs, women’s groups, and more, to gain a better understanding of gender considerations in LDN specifically, and in the project cycle in general. These workshops complemented a help desk mechanism that provided tailored feedback to nine LDN project proposals made to major funding mechanisms. 

GIZ is supporting the Brazilian Federal Ministry of Environment in the implementation of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) in the project ProAdapta. The project cooperates with the city of Salvador on reducing climate change-related risks.

Through stakeholder meetings and interviews with experts, three different climate change impacts and hazards were selected: Increased risk of landslides and flooding due to more extreme precipitation as well as increasing heatwaves.

Two communities were selected based on criteria such as presence of entry points, several mapped risks and potential of already planned interventions. Next, vulnerability assessments were conducted by interviewing experts especially from academia and leaders of the two communities as well as through focus group discussions with community residents and document analysis.

Based on this, green and hybrid solutions for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction were identified and compared with grey solutions.

With the threat of loss of biodiversity and exploitation of IP lands and communities in some areas of the Philippines, the Biodiversity Management Bureau – Department of Environment and Natural Resources (BMB-DENR), along with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), and the Philippine Association for Intercultural Development developed a project that is directed toward strengthening the conservation, protection, and management of key biodiversity sites in the Philippines by improving the governance and management of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCAs).

Developed as a result of intense civil society engagement and structured around seven comprehensive guidelines that encompass the most relevant aspects of sustainable food chains and systems, PNAPO is a unique federal framework policy for advancing agroecology and organic production in Brazil. In its first cycle of activities it led to impressive quantitative results in terms of advancing the agroecological agenda in the country (budget and initiative-wise), investing over EUR 364 million, resulting in visible large-scale improvements for smallholders and vulnerable groups. Amongst others, it constructed over 140,000 cisterns and helped 5,300 municipalities to invest 30% or more of their school feeding budgets in organic and agroecological products purchased from family farmers. For its achievements, Brazil’s PNAPO was recognized with the Future Policy Silver Award 2018, awarded by the World Future Council in partnership with FAO and IFOAM – Organics International.