Many forest landscape projects around the world do not address gender gaps sufficiently. As a result, interventions may lead to outcomes that are not only inequitable, but also unsustainable. In response, the World Bank Group (WBG), Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (WOCAN) and others, in partnership with civil society organizations, local and national governments, are increasingly supporting interventions that explicitly target gender-related inequalities.

Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) aims to recover ecological integrity and enhance the wellbeing of people living in deforested and degraded landscapes. Within global and national restoration agendas, modern science is viewed by influential actors as the foundation for addressing some of the world’s most pressing ecological challenges.

This collection of 12 stories from women and men in nine countries in different parts of Africa shines a light on the efforts of communities, some of them decades-long, in restoring degraded forests and landscapes. The stories are not generated through any rigorous scientific process, but are nonetheless illustrative of the opportunities communities create as they solve their own problems, and of the many entry points we have for supporting and accelerating community effort.