Designing impact pathways for forest landscape restoration

Organizers: ICFRE, ICIMOD, GIZ

About the workshop

The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH are organising a consultation workshop to design impact pathways for forest landscape restoration under the Restore, Conserve and Protect Forest and Tree Cover for Nationally Determined Contributions Implementation in India (RECAP4NDC) project. RECAP4NDC is an Indo-German bilateral cooperation project that the GIZ GmbH implements on behalf of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN) under the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Government. The project has six consortium partners including GIZ, namely International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Forest Survey of India (FSI), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), ICFRE, ICIMOD and GIZ. The project is designed to support India’s commitments under its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to the Paris Agreement and is aimed at meeting its forest sector NDC target by restoring degraded forest landscapes, both within and outside forest areas. It aims to improve the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities, enhance ecosystem resilience, and promote sustainable land use. Key activities include promoting forest landscape restoration, building stakeholder capacity, improving access to funding, and strengthening monitoring systems. The project is being implemented in the states of Delhi and national capital region (NCR), Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand. By 2029, it aims to restore 0.4 million hectares of forest landscapes and benefit 10 million people through improved ecosystem services.

Workshop objective

The main objective of the workshop is to bring together and align stakeholders on the long-term goals of forest landscape restoration and the role of capacity building in achieving them. Some specific objectives of the workshop include:

• Map the change process by identifying the sequence of activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts that link capacity building efforts to successful forest landscape restoration implementation
• Clearly define roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder including government agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community leaders, academicians to ensure coordinated action
• Identify gaps and needs by assessing where capacity is insufficient (such as technical skills, institutional support, funding) and determine the necessary interventions to address them
• Adapt to local context ensuring capacity building strategies are tailored to the specific ecological, cultural, and institutional settings of the forest landscape restoration sites

Expected outcomes

• A draft impact pathway: a visual narrative map showing how capacity building activities lead to short, medium, and long-term outcomes in forest landscape restoration
• Clearly defined capacity gaps and needs: a list of technical, institutional, and community level capacity gaps identified by stakeholders
• Online course draft module: a list of steps to conduct impact pathway for forest landscape restoration

Participants

The workshop will bring together about 45 participants representing state departments for forest, rural development, agriculture, and women and child development, research and academic institutions, local communities, and NGOs.