General

Industrial technology, market-oriented development and the modernization of agrifood in Ecuador has distanced Andean farmers from broader society and from their environments. This undermines social relations and the life-sustaining functionality of highland ecosystems. The resulting socio-biological collapse puts people’s health, well-being, and future into question. This project helps resource-poor Andean farmers transition to healthier, more productive regenerative food systems. It supports a pioneering group of women and youth from agroecology movements to strengthen food systems using insights into soil microbiology and the biome. It will enable them to put neglected or underused elements to work for greater food security, the economy and climate change mitigation. Intimate ties with the country’s Indigenous organizations and agrifood movements will help participants continually inform advocacy and policy interventions in their communities, social networks and government. This project will help Andean people test and open up pathways for rehabilitating ecologies and restoring ecosystems. This includes enhancing food security among highly vulnerable populations by combating land degradation and improving farm productivity. It also involves adaptation to climate variability by strengthening the biological functioning of soils and climate change mitigation through on-farm carbon accrual.

Objectives

Towards a nature positive world by 2030 through businesses driving policy ambition and reducing negative corporate impact

Other

Note: Disbursement data provided is cumulative and covers disbursement made by the project Agency.

Target Groups

This project will contribute indirectly to socioeconomic co-benefits at national level in the four key geographies South Africa, India, Colombia and Malaysia, including sustainable livelihoods and economic growth through the innovative, circular solutions delivered by partner businesses which support biodiversity conservation and preserves and restores ecosystem services, as they become increasingly aware of their impacts and dependencies on nature and move towards implementing business-related targets of the CBD Post-2020 GBF. The 7,306 people who are expected to benefit directly from project activities and knowledge products will be equipped with much needed skills to transform business practices and models for nature and climate positivity, increasing their chances for sustained employment. Not only will they benefit individually, but the beneficiaries will also spark continued change by applying acquired knowledge disseminated through the project in different corporate environments, stimulating climate and nature positive business change in a variety of regions and sectors. The more knowledgeable a company’s workforce and management about their operations and supply chains impacts on nature and dependencies on ecosystem services, the higher the chances that they take sufficient and timely action to address their contributions to biodiversity loss, land degradation and climate change. In this way, improved knowledge of the corporate workforce is expected to translate into achieving the global environment benefits of biodiversity conservation, reversing land use change and habitat fragmentation, and mitigating GHG emissions to curtail climate change. Next to stimulating change in the four countries, knowledge products are also expected to increase the awareness and understanding of corporate actors globally, who then in turn are better informed to take action on nature and climate. Moreover, the project’s efforts to assist companies and governments to formulate an enabling policy environment that incentivizes sustainable business models, will contribute to sustaining ecosystem services on which human health depends. In other words, economic activities will shift to stay within planetary boundaries (leveraging on the Global Commons Alliance) and thus keeping health and wellbeing at the center of ambitions, in line with the healthy people, healthy planet concept. Finally, the project interventions will also lead to women empowerment at multiple levels, through a focus on women leadership enhancement in the corporate sector.

Objectives

To help enable decision-makers1 to accelerate the systemwide transformations2 needed to safeguard the global commons for all. 1Decision-makers include policymakers across all sectors and at all levels of decision-making; funders and investors channelling climate and nature-related finance through bilateral aid agencies, multilateral institutions, private philanthropies, and impact investing firms; leaders across the private sector; and those at the helm of international non-governmental organizations, civil society movements, and United Nations agencies. 2 Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C and halting biodiversity loss will require transformations across socio-technical systems (power, industry, transport, the built environment, and sustainable production and consumption) and social-ecological systems (food, terrestrial ecosystem management, freshwater ecosystem management, and marine ecosystem management). Broader transformations across political, economic, and social systems will also be required, such as how we will finance the transition to a net-zero GHG emissions and nature-positive future, measure economic well-being, distribute the costs and benefits of these transformations, improve social equity and inclusion, and govern the global commons.

Other

Note: Disbursement data provided is cumulative and covers disbursement made by the project Agency.

Target Groups

Due to the global and interdisciplinary nature of this project, it is hard to pinpoint quantifiable or localized socioeconomic benefits—however, the project should bring about socioeconomic co-benefits globally and locally through facilitating systems change via the project outcomes. More specifically, the success of the SCL’s work could help deliver the GEF’s global environmental benefits and adaptation benefits. Rapid, far-reaching transitions across systems can lead to a more prosperous, sustainable, and nature-positive society for all. As an example, transforming how we manage land and forests entails restoring degraded and deforestedlandscapes. Such a transformation would lead to a positive impact not only on biodiversity, associated ecosystems services, and ecological resilience, but also contribute to GEF’s global environmental benefits in climate change (through sequestering and storing carbon), land degradation (through restoration of native ecosystems), and adaptation (through agroforestry systems that diversify farmers’ livelihoods). Similarly, transforming our food systems involves shifting to sustainable agricultural production, halving food loss and waste, shifting to more plant-based diets, and reducing GHG emissions from agriculture. These shifts could enhance food security (through increasing crop, livestock, and pasture productivity on existing lands) and improve livelihoods (through the introduction of more resilient, low-emissions production methods and technologies), helping hundreds of millions of small-scale agricultural producers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The SCL also includes a cross-cutting focus on ‘Inclusion, Equity and the Just Transition’ that will underpin the sectoral transformations it seeks to advance (see Annex N for further information). This will include shifts that ensure that the costs and benefits of systems change are equitably distributed, that those historically marginalized from decision-making processes have a seat at the table across all levels of policymaking (i.e., global, national, and local), and that efforts to safeguard the global commons are combined with those to ensure universal access to basic services and opportunities. It also encompasses efforts to ensure just transitions at all levels and for both those disproportionately affected by climate impacts and biodiversity loss, as well as those working in industries that may need to be phased out (e.g., fossil fuel companies). If the Lab is successful in supporting decision-makers to act on these issues, (and potentially strengthening coalitions or helping create a new coalition for transformations not currently addressed), then this should also contribute to substantial socioeconomic benefits in the near future at both local and national levels.