Call for Case Studies on Policy Coherence for Ecosystem Restoration in Landscapes

For seascape and landscape restoration, achieving or improving policy coherence and integration is crucial to avoid ineffective actions and conflicting restoration outcomes, to promote landscape governance and ultimately to achieve long-term positive impact. However, there are challenges at each level of governance (i.e. supranational, national, sub-national, landscape) due to a variety of factors (e.g. limited cross-sectoral coordination, siloed mandates, conflicting priorities) that can affect collaboration among stakeholders and disrupt both horizontal (across sectors or institutions at the same level) and vertical (across different levels of governance).

To help address these challenges, the FAO-led Task Force on Best Practices for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration developed a Capacity, Knowledge and Learning Action Plan which includes, among others, one initiative called “Restoration Policy Facility” to enhance capacities of restoration actors to advocate for policies that support and incentivize effective and inclusive ecosystem restoration in all types of ecosystems. As part of this initiative and under the leadership of Commonland, the World Resources Institute and FAO, the Task Force is documenting good practices that have been shown to improve policy coherence or policy integration across a range of geographies and ecosystems in landscape and seascape restoration initiatives. We aim to build and share a repository of good practices, illustrating the range of actions that have been effective in improving policy coherence in support of landscape restoration initiatives.

We define a landscape as a socio-ecological system that consists of interconnected natural and/or human-modified land and water ecosystems, and which is influenced by distinct ecological, historical, political, economic and sociocultural processes and activities. Where water is the dominant feature, this can also be referred to as a waterscape; where oceans are predominant, this can be referred to as a seascape. For simplicity, we will mostly use the term landscapes to refer to all the above.

Instructions

The survey is open to any landscape or seascape restoration initiative, regardless of who is leading it (e.g. Governments, communities, Indigenous Peoples, NGOs).
All participation is voluntary. The estimated completion time is approximately 45 minutes.You can read through the form and save progress.
Where a question does not apply, please add N/A to be able to save and move forward. Selected case studies will be used as part of policy coherence and governance research, published in a compendium and other publications, and presented at international events to facilitate knowledge sharing.

Thank you for your participation and your valuable input!

If you have any question about the survey, please contact victoria.gutierrez@commonland.com

Name of the Landscape Restoration initiative

Starting date of Landscape Restoration initiative

Date format: DD-MM-YYYY

End date of Landscape Restoration initiative (if applicable)

Date format: DD-MM-YYYY

Leading organisation

Who is leading the initiative?

Contact name and email

We will only contact you if we need further clarification

Type and number of partner organisations involved

If part of collaboration or partnership (e.g. State authorities, companies, NGOs, community group cf. the governance triangle)

Description of the Landscape Restoration Initiative

What challenges does the restoration initiative address, what are the objectives, how will it achieve its objectives, and what has been the impact/are the expected benefits?

Location: Country/Jurisdiction

Please provide coordinates or links to the polygon showing clear boundary of the landscape

Size of the landscape (ha)

What different sectors are involved in the Landscape Restoration initiative? Please tick all applicable options

Supporting documents (If any)

Please provide links to any published materials regarding the initiative

Which broad ecosystem type(s) are addressed by the landscape or seascape restoration activities? Please tick all applicable options

What are the most important Land tenure systems? Please tick all applicable options

Are land rights clearly defined, enforced, or are there ongoing land conflicts?

Please provide short description related to any relevant land rights issue

What broad benefits (impacts) does the initiative aim to deliver? Please tick all applicable options.

Other

Please provide a short explanation of how your initiative contributes to Climate impact

Please provide a short explanation of how your initiative contributes to Inspirational and Spiritual impact

Please provide a short explanation of how your initiative contributes to Financial impact

Please provide a short explanation of how your initiative contributes to Nature and Biodiversity

Please provide a short explanation of how your initiative contributes to Nutrition and Healthy diets

Please provide a short explanation of how your initiative contributes to Social impact

Please provide a short explanation of how your initiative contributes to other impacts

Please tick which stakeholders (first column) were participating in each phase of the initiative (first row)

Rows	Assessment	Planning & Design	Implementation	Ongoing management	Monitoring & Evaluation	Information Sharing
Indigenous Peoples
Local communities
Primary producers (e.g. farmers)
Government
NGOs
INGOs
Business
Research institutions
Certification bodies
Donors
Others

What governance arrangement (that outlines stakeholder roles, decision-making processes, and accountability mechanisms to guide effective restoration efforts) best describes the governance of the Landscape Restoration initiative? Please tick all applicable options.

Please provide a short explanation of how Centralised governance is implemented in your Landscape Restoration initiative.

Please provide a short explanation of how Participatory governance is implemented in your Landscape Restoration initiative.

Please provide a short explanation of how Inclusive governance is implemented in your Landscape Restoration initiative.

Please provide a short explanation of how Adaptive governance is implemented in your Landscape Restoration initiative.

Please provide a short explanation of how Multi-level governance is implemented in your Landscape Restoration initiative.

Please provide a short explanation of how Integrative governance is implemented in your Landscape Restoration initiative.

Please provide a short explanation of how Pluralist governance is implemented in your Landscape Restoration initiative.

Please provide a short explanation of how Polycentric governance is implemented in your Landscape Restoration initiative.

Please provide a short explanation of how Transformative governance is implemented in your Landscape Restoration initiative.

Please provide a short explanation of how Other type of governance arrangement is implemented in your Landscape Restoration initiative.

Main policy coherence challenges (misalignment, fragmentation and obstacles) affecting the success of the Landscape Restoration initiative.

*Policy coherence: The systematic promotion of mutually reinforcing policy goals and actions that create synergies towards achieving the agreed objectives. It can apply to any level of governance system and organization (e.g., government departments and agencies, landscape partnerships) involved in landscape restoration initiatives.

If you have more than one good practice to report, an additional field will appear after you enter the first one, allowing you to add more. If you have no more practices to add, please leave the additional question blank.

I. Policy Misalignment

* Policy misalignment refers to inconsistency, contradiction or conflicts of various policies or strategies at different levels (e.g., governmental, corporate, international) undermining the achievement of shared objectives. e.g. conflicting goals

What are the main issue(s) related to policy misalignment?

Explain a good practice adopted to manage policy misalignment

Please describe the action(s), instrument(s), or arrangement(s) used to address this challenge, whether planned or in retrospect.

In which phases of the Landscape Restoration Initiative the practice described was applied?

Please add an additional good practice adopted to address policy misalignment, if applicable

If there are no other practices to report, please leave this question blank.

In which phases of the Landscape Restoration Initiative the practice described was applied?

Please add an additional good practice adopted to address policy misalignment, if applicable

If there are no other practices to report, please leave this question blank.

In which phases of the Landscape Restoration Initiative the practice described was applied?

Please add an additional good practice adopted to address policy misalignment, if applicable

If there are no other practices to report, please leave this question blank.

In which phases of the Landscape Restoration Initiative the practice described was applied?

Please add any other good practices adopted to address policy misalignment, if applicable

If there are no other practices to report, please leave this question blank.

In which phases of the Landscape Restoration Initiative the practices described were applied?

Evidence supporting the good practice(s) adopted to manage policy misalignment

How do you know the practice led to a positive outcome? What indicator(s), KPI(s), or metric(s) of success were used to infer the positive effect of the practice, if any? If you do not have clear evidence, please explain why you think your approach is promising.

Replicability of the good practice(s) adopted to manage policy misalignment

Can the practice be replicated or adapted for other contexts?

II. Policy Fragmentation:

* Policy fragmentation refers to the disjoint and overlapping policies, where responsibilities and development are spread across multiple agencies, stakeholders, or sectors, leading to overlapping, duplicated, or isolated initiatives (structural division).

What are the main issue(s) related to policy fragmentation?

Explain a good practice adopted to manage policy fragmentation

Please describe the action(s), instrument(s), or arrangement(s) used to address this challenge, whether planned or in retrospect.

In which phases of the Landscape Restoration Initiative the practice described was applied?

Please add an additional good practice adopted to address policy fragmentation, if applicable