Massimo Mina, Head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation to Ghana speaking at the event
The Second Phase of the Regreening Africa programme, funded by the European Union (EU) with a total budget of €15 million, has commenced.
The phase two of the Regreening Africa programme will be implemented by CIFOR-ICRAF in collaboration with World Vision, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), CARE, Sahel Eco, and Agronomes & Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (AVSF).
The initiative aims to restore degraded landscapes, improve food and nutrition security, and strengthen community resilience to climate change across Ghana, Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, and Niger.
This will be achieved through regreening practices such as agroforestry, tree planting and management, home gardening with trees, soil and water conservation, soil health improvement, sustainable grazing and pastoral management, as well as the Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) approach.
In Ghana, the programme is being implemented in the Upper East and Northern Regions through a €2 million investment and its objective is to scale up regreening practices that support smallholder farmers and pastoral households in adopting and benefiting from agroforestry while promoting effective soil and water conservation techniques.
The second phase of the Regreening Africa programme also seeks to create an enabling environment through supportive policies, strengthened local governance, women and youth empowerment, and increased investment to incentivise the widespread adoption of land restoration.
At a press briefing in Tamale, the Northern Region, Head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation to Ghana, Massimo Mina, said the new initiative builds on the achievements of the first phase of the Regreening Africa programme (2017–2023) which promoted sustainable land management practices that supported over 600,000 households, covering nearly one million hectares of land across eight African countries.
“The EU is fully aware of the challenges faced by Ghana, especially in the North of the country. This includes extreme and prolonged dry spells; declining tree cover and increased soil infertility. We provide funding to address these challenges and create jobs and employment opportunities in the communities, especially for women and youth, through land restoration, creation of market linkages for forest-based products and boosting food yields via agroforestry practices”.
Regreening Africa Programme and Stakeholder Engagement with Evidence Lead at CIFOR-ICRAF, Mieke Bourne, noted that as they commence the second phase of the programme in Ghana and other selected African countries, their focus is on expanding the proven practices and approaches from the first phase.
He also noted that they will address identified gaps with the need to include pastoral areas, better matching of practices to local contexts, improved access to quality tree-planting material, enhancing livelihoods through regreening linked value chains and fostering enabling policy environments.
Food Security & Resilience Technical Programme Manager for World Vision, Maxwell Amedi, stated that the initiative also builds on practical, low-cost tools and approaches developed during the first phase of the programme to restore and regreen degraded land.
“We plan to expand existing interventions and replicate effective approaches here in Ghana and across the region by establishing strong linkages and evidence-based scaling strategies for landscape restoration. This will enhance climate change resilience at both national and regional levels. Our efforts will include widespread promotion of regreening as a climate adaptation and mitigation strategy, as well as assessing and understanding its potential for carbon sequestration”.
Programme Director for Agriculture & Livelihoods at the Catholic Relief Services Edward Akunyagra, was worried about the rapid degradation of land in Africa which has led to reduced agricultural productivity, increased food insecurity, declining livelihoods, and weakened community resilience to climate change.
“The time to act is now, to reverse the degradation and make our land fertile and productive. This programme is not just about planting trees, it’s about planting hope, restoring ecosystems, and nurturing a sustainable future for generations to come,” he said.
FROM Eric Kombat, Tamale