From October 15th  – 16th, 2012 EcoAgriculture Partners participated in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) launch of a project to provide institutional support to New Partnerships for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and Regional Economic Commissions (RECs) to scale-up sustainable land management (SLM) in sub-Saharan Africa. EcoAgriculture Partners participated in the meeting as a strategic partner of TerrAfrica in the implementing a capacity building project for the RECs. The project aims to contribute through:

Ecoagriculture Partners is pleased to announce its policy focused side event, "Ecoagriculture Landscapes: Mobilizing Action Together" on Thursday, 27 August 2009 at the 2nd World Agroforestry Congress in Nairobi, Kenya.

Ecoagriculture Partners is an international NGO working to promote development of ‘ecoagriculture landscapes’ that produce abundant food, rural livelihoods and ecosystem services. We partner with local and national Ecoagriculture Working Groups in Kenya, Uganda, Central America and the U.S., many of whom are actively involved in agroforestry.

This side event will update current and potential future partners about the recent work of Ecoagriculture Partners on:

• landscape planning and monitoring methods,
• green markets,
• climate policy and agriculture, 
• leadership development, and
• knowledge-sharing.

The group will discuss strategies for mobilizing policy action nationally and internationally to promote ecoagriculture. It will also offer an opportunity for Working Group partners to catch up with one another.

Key Contacts:

Sara J. Scherr, President, Ecoagriculture Partners or, Louise Buck, Ecoagriculture Partners/Cornell University

The side event will be held in Room 14 from 13:00-14:30 at the United Nations Complex in Gigiri, Nairobi. You can find the full list of side events here: http://www.worldagroforestry.org/WCA2009/side_events

The 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry is being held from 23-28 August 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya. You can find valuable information about the Congress, including visa requirements, discounted airfare, accommodation and schedule of events at: http://www.worldagroforestry.org/wca2009/

31 participants from 8 Central American countries (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Paraguay) participated in the second Mesoamerica Ecoagriculture Leadership course.  The course was offered in collaboration with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Tropical Agriculture Research and Training Center (CATIE), and held from 16-26 November, 2008 at the CATIE campus in Costa Rica. Partner organizations included Ecoagriculture Partners and the University of California Berkeley Center for Sustainable Development, while collaborators included the National University of Costa Rica, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the Costa Rica Ministry of Agriculture.

The main topics discussed at the course were: ecoagriculture management of landscapes; planning for collective action; public policy and markets; analysis of market opportunities; collaborative leadership, and participative landscape planning as well as a tour of the field and. During the course, Dr JJ Campos, Director General of CATIE and Chris Hansen, Deputy Director General of IICA enthusiastically endorsed the institutionalization of an ecoagriculture leadership and integrated territorial management course as an annual event in Mesoamerica. Future courses will be held in the region, with possible expansion throughout the hemisphere.  Initial requests have come from Paraguay, Mexico and Brazil.

For more information please contact Dr. Robin Marsh, Co-Director, Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program, UC Berkeley, and Coordinator, Ecoagriculture Leadership Development, Ecoagriculture Partners at rmarsh@nature.berkeley.edu

• 31 participants from 8 Central American countries (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Paraguay) took the Mesoamerica Ecoagriculture Leadership course.  The course was offered in collaboration with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and the Tropical Agriculture Research and Training Center (CATIE) from 16-26 November, 2008 at CATIE campus in Costa Rica.
• Dr JJ Campos, Director General of CATIE and Chris Hansen, Deputy Director General of IICA enthusiastically endorsed the institutionalization of an ecoagriculture leadership and integrated territorial management course as an annual event in Mesoamerica. Future courses will be held in the region , with possible expansion throughout the hemisphere.   Initial requests have come from Paraguay, Mexico and Brazil.
• 36 participants from 6 countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) took the East Africa Ecoagriculture Leadership course.  The course was co-organized with the Ugandan NGO – Ecotrust, and offered in collaboration with institutions in the East Africa Ecoagriculture Working Groups from 15-22 April, 2008 in Jinja, Uganda.
• Ayele Kebede Gebreyes, a participant from Ethiopia, has gone on to establish a national taskforce of 7 institutions to share the knowledge, pratices and experiences of ecoagriculture.  The taskforce is organizing a national stakeholder conference on "Ecological Agriculture for Sustainable Food Security in Ethiopia" in partnership with goverment agencies.
• Blaise Ngarukiye and Pascal Nahimana, participants from Rwanda, are moving forward on designing their own courses for addressing Rwanda specific issues.