By Nabiha Shahab

The Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) held a new event called ‘Partner Day’ during its 2023 edition of Science Week on May 10th.

Science Week, an annual event, brings together CIFOR-ICRAF’s staff from all over the world to exchange knowledge and insights on crucial global issues within their mandate. This year’s theme, ‘Equity in Action’, provided a unique opportunity to learn about CIFOR-ICRAF’s commitment to equity and inclusion and how their work addresses the global challenge of inequality in collaboration with communities, partners and governments.

The inaugural Partner Day celebrated the contributions of CIFOR-ICRAF’s work with partners to just transitions and equitable transformations in Indonesia. It showcased and reflected on achievements to date, explored ways to enhance existing partnerships and identified new areas for future collaboration.

“The partnership that has been built, has certainly been a powerful one, with personal relationship, friendship and innovation. We are all friends here, we all partners and we are working for the future,” said Robert Nasi, CIFOR-ICRAF’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) in a welcome address, highlighting the significance of the organization’s work in Indonesia for the global forest sector.

“To ensure sustainability, overcoming intergenerational conflict is vital, and a social system that supports decision-making which takes into account the benefits to future generations is critically important,” said Arif Satria, the rector of Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) – one of CIFOR-ICRAF’s strategic partners engaged in collaborative projects to promote sustainability sciences – in a keynote speech.

IPB is part of the Trade Hub consortium led by CIFOR-ICRAF in Indonesia, which aims to promote sustainable trade and address challenges faced by smallholder farmers in the palm oil sector, explained Satria, adding that IPB’s activities there include capacity building, strengthening programs and the development of knowledge products.

Ary Sudijanto, Director-General of the Agency for Standardization of Environment and Forestry Instruments (ASEFI), recognized the longstanding collaboration between the Indonesian government and CIFOR-ICRAF in addressing challenges and improving the country’s forestry sector. “The form of cooperation that is carried out is not only research, but also capacity building, information and expertise exchange,” he said. “The locus of cooperation covers several regions spread throughout Indonesia.”

He listed some key activities that have resulted from the partnership, including the development of the Indonesian National Carbon Accounting System (INCAS), the Haze Free Sustainable Livelihoods Project (HFSLP), the Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP), the improvement of governance, policy and institutional arrangements for UN-backed climate mitigation scheme REDD+ and the national arm of the Global Comparative Study on REDD+.

Collaboration for regional green growth planning

In a panel focusing on promoting green growth for improved food security and livelihoods, speakers explored different green growth strategies and initiatives being implemented with the support of research conducted in partnership with CIFOR-ICRAF. The partners shared their experiences in implementing approaches towards sustainable land use and management, improving food security and livelihoods.

Regina Ariyanti, Head of the Regional Planning Agency (BAPPEDA) for South Sumatra, shared insights into the collaboration between the provincial government and CIFOR-ICRAF in the development of a master plan for green growth in the province. She recalled how the partnership began when South Sumatra was hit by severe forest fires in 2015. “ICRAF calculated how much [carbon] loss occurred due to forest fires in the province and helped address some of the challenges from being put in the spotlight, since South Sumatra contributed a lot to smoke and haze at the time.”

One of the current initiatives to reduce emissions is the provincial REDD+ project. The province has received a challenge from the president to keep economic growth in line with emission reductions. This means that economic growth of 7% must be achieved alongside emission reductions of 29%, with an additional contribution of 41% from other countries, said Ariyanti.

Panels on restoration and trade

The afternoon of Partner Day opened with a panel on landscape restoration, with a particular focus on carbon-rich ecosystems like wetlands – including peatlands and mangroves – which face significant pressure for conversion to other uses. Restoring these ecosystems is crucial for mitigating climate change and sea-level rise. The panel discussed mitigation and adaptation measures, highlighting their potential to improve the livelihoods of local communities.

The last panel of the day focused on trade and the new EU anti-deforestation regulation. The trading bloc recently issued a new law to prevent companies from trading commodities linked with deforestation and forest degradation within or from the EU. The session focused on navigating the new regulation, its implications, and the way forward for global trade, the environment, and smallholder farmers. Insights were shared from consumer and producer countries, civil society organizations (CSOs) and research organizations, with palm oil and timber highlighted as case studies.

Overall, Partner Day provided CIFOR-ICRAF with an opportunity to showcase and reflect on how its work addresses the global challenge of inequality – a central focus of its strategy for 2020-2030. The event served as a platform to celebrate existing partnerships, discuss ways to strengthen them and identify new areas for future collaboration.

By Ann Wavinya

CIFOR-ICRAF and the Aga Khan Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen action research and promote the conservation and sustainability of agricultural, forest and coastal ecosystems.

The Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) has entered a five-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF).

The two organizations aim to cooperate in the sustainable use and conservation of agricultural, forestry and coastal ecosystems and in social development benefitting local communities.

“We look forward to this new partnership to strengthen action research on-the-ground,” says Leigh Ann Winowiecki, Global Research Leader of Soil and Land Health at CIFOR-ICRAF. “Specifically, the Soils Research Theme looks forward to generating the evidence base on how land management practices impact soil health across diverse landscapes and farming systems.”

The partnership will combine CIFOR-ICRAF’s global scientific research expertise with AKF’s long-standing relationships with communities to deepen their research and data.

Contact: Ann Wavinya, Communication Officer (a.wavinya@cifor-icraf.org)

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By David Henry

“The work we are doing is important for the world today, but also for future generations and for the planet.”

With these opening words at Science Week 2023: Equity in Action, Dr Éliane Ubalijoro made her first public appearance as Chief Executive Officer of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF).

Each year, CIFOR-ICRAF hosts a weeklong event that brings its staff from around the world together to establish and sustain institution-wide engagement with the critical global problems that the organization addresses.

This year’s theme of Equity in Action provided a unique opportunity to learn about CIFOR-ICRAF’s commitment to equity and inclusion, a core area of the organization’s strategy for 2020‒2030 to ensure its actions facilitate just transitions and equitable transformations.

“How we help harness the power of trees, forests and agroforestry landscapes to address the most pressing global challenges of our times – biodiversity loss, climate change, food security, livelihoods and inequality – is critical for us to embody Equity in Action,” Dr Ubalijoro said.

Participants from around the world attended the forum at the two campuses in Bogor, Indonesia, and Nairobi, Kenya, while several sessions were streamed to the public for the first time.

The topics included value chain development as a pathway to equity and inclusion; integrated approaches for inclusive landscape governance; climate justice; gender-responsive biochar innovations; and early career scientists as a catalyst for change.

CIFOR-ICRAF’s work, along with that of its partners, has been transforming how land is used and how food is produced. It has helped governments, Indigenous Peoples and local communities develop the tools they need to better conserve and restore ecosystems, and respond to climate, malnutrition, biodiversity and desertification crises.

“Moving from inequality to justice is a journey that we are all on,” Dr Ubalijoro said. “We all have, at some point, witnessed inequity in the form of unfair and avoidable differences arising from poor governance, corruption or cultural exclusion. We have also witnessed inequality in the form of uneven distribution of wealth. We cannot be passive bystanders on this journey. We cannot be witnesses to the victimization of people or the planet.”

Dr Ubalijoro recalled her own experience as a 17-year-old undergraduate student of agriculture in a non-diverse educational environment that offered little recognition of the pioneering women who had come before her. She overcame the odds, completing a master’s and PhD in molecular genetics before becoming a research scientist and professor, leading teams in the biotechnology sector, in academia and the non-profit sector, as well as advising governments.

“As an organization, it is important we recognize that achieving equity and inclusion is not just the right thing to do, but is also essential for the success of our work,” said Dr Ubalijoro.

The opening plenary also featured keynote speaker Andrew Fanning of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab, who introduced an emerging branch of ecological economics that portrays the doughnut shape as a compass of human prosperity with the aim of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet.

“We are now at a point in the 21st century – because of the system we inherited – that we are dependent on constant growth of GDP,” Fanning said. “There’s this dependence upon something that actually cannot continue on a finite planet.”

The doughnut concept, created by Kate Raworth, brings Western economies back in line with the values of other cultures that have thrived in harmony with nature, aiming to correct an imbalanced world and calling for new ways of interaction.

No nation is living within the “doughnut” currently, with all of the Global North overshooting planetary boundaries, while countries such as Costa Rica are emerging as the most efficient at achieving positive social outcomes, Fanning said.

The second public plenary on 11 May explored how change in women’s agency can be measured and monitored to positively impact food systems and the environment.

Jody Harris of the World Vegetable Center examined structural inequities – involving maternal education, wealth and location – as reasons for malnourishment in countries such as India, Botswana and Honduras. Mulia Nurhasan of CIFOR-ICRAF highlighted the lack of recognition that policy makers assign to forests and trees as providers of food and nutrition for the 1.7 people in the world who depend on forests for their survival.

Steph McMullin of CIFOR-ICRAF discussed the low diversity of food in Zambia, where 54 percent of the population are malnourished. She introduced the concept of food tree portfolios, which are designed to diversify food tree species for local food production so that different types of food are available throughout the year and provide micronutrients.

Mary Crossland of CIFOR-ICRAF explained the concept of ‘agency’ – the ability to define one’s goals and act on them – so that women in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia can participate in decisions affecting their health and household purchases. Gloria Adeyiga of the Regreening Africa project elaborated on this topic with a gender-transformative approach to changing women’s agency in land restoration, outlining a case study in the Bawku West District of northern Ghana.

Swati Renduchintala of CIFOR-ICRAF rounded up the session with a talk on the feminisation of agriculture through measuring women’s agency in agroecological approaches to natural farming in India, a holistic method of leveraging photosynthesis in plants to close the carbon cycle, improve soil health and enable better water availability.

“At the end of the day, our work is about how we are empowering smallholder farmers and everyone around that ‘last mile,’ such as Indigenous People and local communities,” CEO Ubalijoro said in closing the session. “What is humbling for us as scientists is to ask: How are we affecting mindsets, culture and behavioural change? Those are really critical elements that are going to help bring about the needed transformation.”

The final day featured a public session with speakers from the Global Landscapes Forum, including leaders of youth-led programmes. They focused on the learnings from GLF’s connection with local communities, highlighting the importance of linking scientific knowledge and expertise with local knowledge and action to catalyze just transformations and thriving landscapes.

“The knowledge, the innovative tools, and the scientific methodologies from GLF, CIFOR and ICRAF have helped us in shaping our restoration project to become more evidence- and scientific-based,” said Frances Camille Rivera, who participated in the session and was GLF Wetlands Restoration Steward in 2021.

To watch Dr Éliane Ubalijoro’s keynote speech and more, visit the Science Week event page.

The consensus is clear: without keen attention to inequities in power and resources, efforts to address the entwined climate, biodiversity, and food crises will fail. Moreover, the uneven impacts of these crises are likely to exacerbate inequality across the globe, entrenching poverty further and increasing the likelihood of conflict.

That’s why, as both a pragmatic response and a moral imperative, the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) threads a focus on equity and inclusion through all of its work with and for communities, partners, and governments. This year, ‘Equity in Action’ is also the focus of CIFOR-ICRAF’s Science Week, which will take place online from 8-12 May.

The annual event brings together the organisation’s staff from across the globe to connect and engage on the critical global challenges it confronts: namely, deforestation and biodiversity loss; broken food systems (including degradation of land and water resources); climate change; inequality; and unsustainable supply and value chains.

In previous years, Science Week has been a strictly internal affair (though several of the 2022 sessions were made available on YouTube following that year’s event). This year, however, many of the sessions will be available to the public to attend virtually, via free streaming on the organisation’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.

When the conference kicks off on 8 May, viewers can catch the opening remarks and keynote speech of Éliane Ubalijoro, CIFOR-ICRAF’s new CEO.

Ubalijoro has a long track record in working on equity issues, and has focused much of her working life on improving food security and improving the lives of women and smallholder farmers in emerging countries. She comes to CIFOR-ICRAF from twin roles as Executive Director of Canadian think tank Sustainability in the Digital Age (SDA) and Professor of Practice for public-private sector partnerships at McGill University‘s Institute for the Study of International Development. At SDA, she was particularly concerned with the ‘digital divides’ that limit women’s, rural communities, and least-developed countries’ access> to digital technologies.

Midweek, 10 May has been dubbed ‘Partner Day’ to celebrate how CIFOR-ICRAF’s work with partners contributes to just transitions and equitable transformations in Indonesia, as well as discussing ways to enhance existing partnerships and identify new areas for collaboration.

Presenters will include governmental representatives, such as Ary Sudijanto, Director General of the Agency for Standardization of Environment and Forestry Instruments, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and Moch. Edy Yusuf (Assistant Deputy of Plantation Agribusiness Development, Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs); university representatives, such as Ni Luh Watiniasih (Udayana University) and Ali Suhardiman (Mulawarman University); and civil society representatives, such as Gita Syahrani (Director of Indonesia’s Sustainable Districts Association) and Diah Suradiredja (Kehati Foundation).

Most of the day will be live-streamed, including a session by CIFOR-ICRAF food and nutrition scientist Mulia Nurhasan. She will show how the organisation is working to address sustainability and equity issues simultaneously, by conducting research to support the wide range of inclusive ‘green growth’ strategies and initiatives being carried out by partners. Developmental and environmental objectives are still widely perceived as a “zero-sum struggle”, and much of the organisation’s work in recent years has sought to highlight how to meet both kinds of goals in a symbiotic fashion.

Later that day, and also on the public livestream, CIFOR-ICRAF principal scientist Daniel Murdiyarso and senior scientist Himlal Baral will hone in on an example of such research from their collective decades of experience. They’ll demonstrate how landscape-level restoration in wetland ecosystems such as peatlands and mangroves can address climate challenges in conjunction with livelihood issues. These ecosystems are often extremely rich in carbon, and provide services such as water cycling and flood protection which are particularly critical in the face of climate change impacts. However, they frequently face tremendous pressure from conversion for other uses such as agriculture and urban development. The session will show how restoration, adaptation, and mitigation measures can – and should – be seen as an opportunity to enhance the livelihoods of local communities.

Also on 10 May, Indonesia Deputy Country Director for CIFOR-ICRAF, Herry Purnomo, will tease out some of the knotty equity challenges wrought by international climate change mitigation and biodiversity efforts. Specifically, he’ll discuss a new EU law that’s designed to prevent companies from placing commodities on its market that are linked with deforestation and forest degradation, or exporting them from the EU. While the intent is laudable, the risk of sidelining the millions of smallholder farmers who currently supply the EU market, through increased compliance costs, is real. Purnomo will take viewers through the new law’s implications and consider the way forward for global trade, the environment, and smallholder farmers. The session will offer insights from consumer and producer countries, civil society and research organisations, and will highlight palm oil and timber as case studies.

To make sure you don’t miss out on these sessions – and plenty more – be sure to follow CIFOR-ICRAF on Facebook, YouTube, and/or Twitter, and sign up for email updates here. To catch up on last year’s Science Week, check out our YouTube playlist.