The project has employed several approaches designed to bring together different players involved in the execution of the project. Notably, the project is designed from a systems perspective – bringing together the policymakers, community, experts, government agencies, private sector, development agencies and academia – aimed to bring sustainable solutions to the economic, social and environmental challenges in The Gambia. Some of the adapted approaches include:

EbA protocols development, validation and piloting: The EbA protocols involve developing suitability analysis for community forests and developing an implementation guide on land restoration in the project regions. This enhances the adaptation potential and livelihood benefits of communities while generating co-benefits of climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation and proper natural resources management. Protocols 1) identify appropriate intervention options that are feasible in each context, 2) determine how to implement the identified feasible options, and 3) monitoring of the impacts of the interventions. At the heart of the design and implementation of ecosystem restoration is the analysis and identification of the most feasible interventions which are socially acceptable, economically rewarding and environmentally friendly. Each of the interventions is contextualized according to the local realities of the areas where the activities are implemented.

Community engagement and empowerment – The community, is at the center of the EbA project. One of the key approaches employed is to engage communities through consultations, training and project implementation. In the last four years, the project has reached out to communities in the intervention areas – lower, central and upper river regions – to ensure that their views and priorities are taken into account in the project design. In the EbA protocol design, the community members from 50 community forests, 15 men and 15 women participated in establishing the priority EbA practices, feasibility scoring, establishing the related enterprises and identifying the required inputs and barriers for implementing the proposed practices. These insights formed guideline tools that the community can use in restoring the degraded landscapes.

Communities are also widely involved and engaged in restoring degraded community-managed parks and forests. In Kiang West National Park, for example, community members provided workforce and labor in Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) actions such as priority trees clearing, establishing firebreaks around the intervention sites and analyzing wildings types and density around the intervention sites. This not only yielded social and environmental benefits to the communities engaged but also directly supported them economically.

Experts opinion and engagement – the project continuously engages experts from the different government departments and ministries in the implementation process. Some of the key Gambian departments involved include Forestry, Community Development, Agriculture, and Parks and Wildlife Management. The expertise support from the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources in the Gambia is also central in project implementation.

Technical support – ICRAF provides the technical support and backstopping in critical areas including, ecosystem-based adaptation, community forestry, and nature-based enterprise and policy development in the EbA project through evidence-based intervention design and implementation. It takes the leading role in publishing the technical activities, quarterly, bi-annual and annual progress of the project. Besides, it also provides technical training in areas such as tree nurseries development, establishing propagators for wild edible fruits, development of business plans, enterprise management guidelines, maintaining the information and geospatial platforms of the project.

Prime Africa Consult PYT Ltd, South Africa provided technical backstopping for natural resource enterprise development, beekeeping value change, ecotourism concept development and bioprospecting study on baobab.