Inclusive Coastal Ecosystem Restoration for Climate Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods
ACTIVE- Partner / NGO
- WUBU
- Sector
- Multi-sector
- Budget Range
- $500,000 - $1,000,000
- Project Dates
- 2026-02-01 – 2027-12-31
Locations
Description
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as Cabo Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Zanzibar face acute and accelerating climate risks. Their economies and food systems rely heavily on fragile coastal and terrestrial ecosystems that are increasingly threatened by climate change including rising sea levels, recurrent floods, prolonged droughts, and degradation of coastal ecosystems. These shocks disproportionately impact rural households particularly women, youth, and persons with disabilities whose livelihoods depend on fisheries, agriculture, marine ecosystems and natural resources. This initiative responds to these intersecting risks through an integrated approach that links ecosystem restoration, climate-smart livelihoods, and social protection. The proposed program builds on FAO’s global comparative advantages in climate adaptation, ecosystem restoration, social protection, and youth employment. Guided by the FAO Strategic Framework (2022–2031) and the Four Betters, the program leverages FAO’s long-standing technical expertise coastal restoration, geospatial analytics (SEPAL, WaPOR), and inclusive rural transformation. The proposed project addresses key structural vulnerabilities in the three island nations: degradation of critical ecosystems, climate-sensitive and precarious rural livelihoods, weak linkages between disaster risk management and social protection, and persistent exclusion of youth, women, and marginalized groups from green and blue economy opportunities. It proposes a multidimensional solution that restores degraded coastal ecosystems, supports youth- and women-led climate-smart enterprises, and strengthens government systems for climate-responsive and adaptive social protection. Through nature-based solutions, the project will rehabilitate mangroves, seagrasses, and coastal forests, rebuild natural buffers against storms and erosion, and create new livelihood opportunities linked to sustainable aquaculture, agroforestry, and restoration-based value chains. The program will also strengthen national information systems by integrating early-warning tools, geospatial monitoring, and climate data with social protection registries to enable anticipatory action. Partnerships are central to the initiative. The project will collaborate with several partners to co-design incentives for restoration and strengthen government capacity for long-term resilience. For sustainability, the project will seek reforms in existing national policies, NDCs, NAPs, social protection and youth employment strategies and explore climate financing mechanisms among others ensuring strong institutional ownership and an enabling environment for scale-up.
Activities
Undertake social protection and anticipatory action feasibility assessments
Development of roadmaps for linking social protection and anticipatory action
Identify and select social protection beneficiaries dependent on coastal ecosystem and integrate them into restoration activities focused on youth and women
Support national and subnational governments in reviewing, developing, or updating policies, strategies, and planning instruments that integrate ecosystem restoration targets and climate resilience priorities
Facilitate inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogues (women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, private sector) to co-design incentive mechanisms (financial, regulatory, institutional) that encourage adoption of restoration practice
Participatory mapping/study undertaken to identify necessary restoration and climate-resilience building measures at community-level
Provide technical, business and financial training, and inputs for women, youth, and marginalized groups to design and implement local restoration and livelihood projects (e.g., mangrove replanting, agroforestry, coastal protection).
Facilitate peer-to-peer exchanges and community learning platforms across the three countries
Facilitate access to finance, including through synergies with larger ongoing projects, for viable business models
Integrate restoration into national planning (such as climate adaptation strategies and land-use plans).
Provide technical assistance to local organizations and SMEs (such as NGOs, community-based organizations, and farmer associations) to improve their business plans and design "bankable" projects for accessing climate finance for restoration activities.