VIRTUAL EVENT: Mobilizing Private Investment in the Great Green Wall

23-25 March 2021. Mobilizing Private Investment in the Great Green Wall

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in partnership with the UNCCD, African Development Bank, ICRAF, ELD, IDH, 1t.org, WBSCD, SOS Sahel, Mirova, CPIC and South Pole.

The conference explored ways to strengthen the participation of women, youth and marginalized groups in entrepreneurial activities.

The webinar has been organized to connect diverse groups of actors, to share experiences, promote innovation, and stimulate investment in the Great Green Wall. It will explore ways to strengthen the participation of women, youth and marginalized groups in entrepreneurial activities. It will share information on established safeguards for responsible investment as well as potential gaps and risks, and will and recommendations for establishing an enabling policy environment for private investment.

Extract of the programme:

23/03 Opening Plenary Session - Values and Opportunities

• Dr. Bruno Oberle - Director General, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) 
• Louise Baker - United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Global Drylands Coordinator 
• Prof. Abdoulaye Dia - Pan African Agency for the Great Green Wall, Executive Secretary of the PAAGGW 
• Dr. Juliette Biao - Regional Director and Representative of UNEP 
• Philippe Lacoste - Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, France, Director of Sustainable Development 
• Prof. Robert Costanza - Crawford School of Public Policy, Vice-Chancellor’s Chair in Public Policy 
• Dr. Kevin K. Kariuki - African Development Bank Group, Vice-President Power, Energy Climate Change & Green Growth 
• H.E. Ambassador Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko - African Union Commission, Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy & Sustainable Environment 
• Moderator: Asha Sumputh, CNBC

 

23/03 From Green Walls to Green Wealth: The Sahel Renaissance

The aim of the session is to demonstrate a new way to invest, creating opportunities to unlock the possibility of a greener and a more stable and prosperous Sahel. It focused on opportunities for private and public stakeholders to play their part in restoration. This process of recovering damaged land and ecosystems is vital not just for people but also business and can represent a business opportunity in itself. Involvement can be through new investments and associated interventions as well as through more circularity, natural resource awareness and sustainability in existing ones. The session provided illustrations of how multiple actors, institutions and processes are interacting at different levels and scales discuss the current and future role of private and public investments particularly in major annual crops like cotton and sesame and the globally, regionally and locally traded tree-sourced products that are so central to these drylands. 

• Dr. Adja Diallo - Tree Scientist, National Centre of Forestry Research of the Senegalese Institute of Agriculture Research
• Dr. Tony Simons - Executive Director of CIFOR-ICRAF and head of Resilient Landscapes
• Jane Feehan - European Investment Bank, Head of Regional Representation
• Dr. Jules Bayala - World Agroforestry (ICRAF), Senior Scientist 
• Matthew Brian Reddy - GEF Secretariat - Programs Unit, Senior Private Sector Specialist 
• Dr. Kenneth ANGU ANGU - IUCN, Head of the Cameroon Country Office/ Regional Forest Program Coordinator for Central and West Africa
• Karsten Nielsen - AAK (Belgium) Chief Technology Officer. AAK specializes in plant-based oils
• Seynabou Dien - Director Maya Marinades,  an innovative agrifood processing and marketing company operating out of Bamako
• Issaka Ouedraogo - Autorité Nationale Désignée du Fonds Vert pour le Climat Secrétaire Exécutif du Fonds Vert pour le Climat au Burkina Faso
• Adhiti Gupta - Manager of the Market Acceleration & Design Funding team at Convergence. 
• Frank Nagel - Impact Finance initiatives at Rabobank in emerging markets.
• Matthew Brooke - EC/INTPA/F.3 Promotion of value chains and private investment/blending in the agricultural sector
• Soumaila Diakite - leading Clarmondial’s activities in West Africa since 2018.
• Moderator: Bora Masumbuko - Senior Programme Officer, Drylands, Global Ecosystem Management Programme at IUCN

23/03 Land Degradation Neutrality Fund and Technical Assistance Facility: Presentation and Guidance to Project Developers

This session informed project developers on the working of the LDN fund and its Technical Assistance Facility, and to catalyze discussions to converge pipeline projects into bankable investment projects. The latter will be followed-up in the day 3 session led by IUCN on developing a pipeline for bankable investment projects.

• Mr Gautier Quéru - Mirova, Head of the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund
• Tomo Kumahira - Vice President of Corporate Finance and Strategy at Komaza
• Dagmar Mooij - Program Manager of the Technical Assistance Facility for the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund which is managed by IDH - The Sustainable Trade Initiative. 

23/03 Removing Barriers to Investment Along the Great Green Wall

Investment in the Great Green Wall will not come at a scale that is big enough to bring transformational change unless barriers to investment are removed and incentives are in place. This session looked at how can an enabling environment be created to leverage investment at scale in the Sahel 

• Louis Perroy - Climatekos, UNCCD
• Kola Masha - Babban Gona, Nigeria
• Patrick Scheurle - Pegasus Capital
• Elvis Paul Nfor Tangem - African Union
• Path-ay Sen - IFAD
• Charles Karangwa - IUCN / UICN  - Regional Lead, Forests and Landscapes, Africa
• Hughes Goa - EBID –Ecowas Bank

24/03 Opening Plenary Session - Enablers for Investment

• Philippe Zaouati. He is the CEO of Mirova, an asset management company specializing in sustainable investment, which he created within Natixis in 2014, recognized as one of the pioneers of green and sustainable finance.
• Patrice Burger - President & Founder @ Centre d'Actions et de Réalisations Internationales (CARI) Mr. Burger has been engaged in the promotion of agroecology as a tool to support the improvement of drylands populations livelihood for 25 years. 
• Johnathon Davies - IUCN
• Toumany Diallo - Agence Nationale de la Grande Muraille Verte (ANGMV) au Mali
  Directeur Général
• Maisharou Abdou -  He is the General Director of the National Agency of the Great Green Wall Initiative in Niger since 2015.
  Potentialite des Insecticides naturelles a base de neem
  
• Toussaint Bamouni - Executive Director Burkina Faso Chamber of Mines 
• Moderator: Louise Baker

Landscape Restoration Through Business and Value Chain Development – Bridging Capacity Gaps

Developing an investable landscape restoration project involves a series of steps to take the project from the concept phase to implementation. For many project developers working to develop more sustainable landscapes, it is often unclear what steps need to be taken to initially source and conceptualize a project and therefore require further capacity building. It also requires building capacity on business development with local entrepreneurs, which are at the heart of successful restoration investments.

As such, IDH and the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD will, through this session, share their experience on building capacity with local actors towards investable restoration projects with an emphasis on the Great Green Wall region and dryland products.

• Moussa Touré - Agence pour la promotion des investissements au Mali (API-MALI)
• Marie Veyrier - Global Shea Alliance
• Thomas Duurland - Programme Manager in IDH’s Landscape Finance team, which manages Technical Assistance (TA) Facilities linked to impact investment funds (LDN Fund, AGRI3 Fund and &Green Fund). (IDH – The Sustainable Trade Initiative)
• Daniele Gelz - Programme Officer IUCN

Scaling Restoration: the Role of Local Ecopreneurship and Value Chain Partnerships

In landscapes across the Great Green Wall countries, local community enterprises, SMEs and other small-scale companies are successfully restoring the land while developing and enhancing value chains that support local livelihoods and biodiversity. Awareness on the opportunities and challenges for scaling such local restoration entrepreneurship – or ecopreneurship – however remains limited at the local, regional and global level.

This session brought to the fore the role of small-scale and community enterprises in advancing restoration actions in arid and semi-arid zones of Central and West Africa. Anchored in the needs of local communities, the session discussed successful models, innovations and partnerships to help scale and replicate restoration ecopreneurship across the region.

• 
  Josef Garvi - Executive Director, Sahara Sahel Foods. Sahara Sahel Foods develops novel foodsfrom wild dryland plants
• Nicole Schwab - Co-Director, Platform to Accelerate Nature-based Solutions & 1t.org World Economic Forum 
• Faustina Buobu - Charcoal Producers and Buyers Association, West Gonja District 
• Mamatou Djaffo - Fédération Nationale des Productrices d'amandes et de beurre de Karité du Bénin (FNPK-Bénin) 
• Hervé Bourguignon - The Moringa Partnership 
• Daryl Bosu - Deputy National Director A Rocha Ghana 
• Salima Mahamoudou - Research Associate, West and Central Africa Lead, World Resources Institute 
• Dominique Endamana - Regional Programme Officer IUCN 
• Moderator: Saadia Bobtoya Owusu-Amofah IUCN

Related: FUNDIG OPPORTUNITY: Trillion Trees: the Sahel and the Great Green Wall

The Challenge is calling for innovative and ecopreneurial approaches to landscape restoration that contribute to the vision of the Great Green Wall Initiative and deliver benefits to people and environment of the Sahel.

Accepting submission from 22 March 2021 – 23 April 2021.

Challenge Timeline

• 22 March 2021 to 23 April 2021: open call for submissions
• 26 April 2021 to 11 June 2021: review and selection process
• Mid-June: selected submissions will be announced at a launch event around World Day to combat Desertification and Drought
• July 2021 to October 2021: cohort programme to scale and advance impact

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