WASHINGTON, May 13, 2021 - The World Bank Group approved a US$6 million grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to support communities in restoring degraded landscapes and intensifying sustainable land management practices for more resilient food production and strengthened value chains. The additional financing for the Burundi Landscape Restoration and Resilience Project will finance the scale-up and expansion of the project’s activities to an additional province, Kayanza, home to degraded landscapes and important natural habitat.
"Climate change is the ultimate threat multiplier of fragility in a country like Burundi, and this additional financing builds on the recognition that landscape restoration efforts must be addressed to tackle multifaceted problems related to rural poverty, nutrition, food security, and land use at the community level” said Jean Christophe Carret, World Bank Country Director for Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola.
The Burundi Landscape Restoration and Resilience Project will introduce terracing and bioengineering measures expected to increase crop yields and bring degraded lands back into production, thereby relieving the shortage of arable land. It also promotes activities that reduce conversion and degradation of forests. Taking a comprehensive landscape approach, the project ensures social inclusion of different socioeconomic communities.
The project’s activities will specifically intervene in nine highly degraded coffee cultivation hills close to the Kibira National Park in the municipality of Matongo (Kayanza Province) and degraded forest landscapes within and along the South Eastern sectors of the Park (Teza and Rwegura).
The additional financing for the Burundi Landscape Restoration and Resilience Project is funded through the GEF-7 replenishment under its Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Program. Structured with a Global Platform and 27 country projects, FOLUR aims to transform the global food and land use systems so that production areas and actors are better integrated with demand and financing sectors, producing ecosystem services and maintaining natural capital.
