‘Stimulating Community Initiatives in Sustainable Land Management’ (SCI-SLM) focuses on identifying innovative forms of land management amongst communities in four countries in Africa, i.e., South Africa, Ghana, Uganda and Morocco. The premise is that there are local community innovations succeeding where formal research recommendations have often failed. The common denominator lies in initiatives – regarding land, water or plant resources – that have emanated from the communities themselves, demonstrating their capacity to come up with solutions to problems of land degradation internally.
SCI-SLM endeavours to help add value to these initiatives – through research partnerships - as well as stimulating these communities to go forward with their efforts. SCI-SLM documents the initiatives and encourages other communities to learn from these focal points through, amongst other ways, cross visits. Establishing communication flowlines of successful initiatives and ‘innovativeness’ is central. At a higher level SCI-SLM seeks to institutionalise the concept and mechanisms of such an approach, in the relevant government ministries, and amongst other organisations.
Developments within the SCI-SLM project
2012
The Fourth Project Steering Commitee (PSC) Workshop is scheduled to take place in Tamale, Ghana from 23 - 28 September 2012. It will be officially opened by the Minister of the Northern Region. In addition to the core members of the Steering Commiteee, community representatives from the four countries in the project will participate. The workshop will review progress in project implementation across the various countries. It will also asses the progress in institutionalising the methodology at country level. The meeting will identify some of the emerging policy implications.
The workshop procedings will include visits to SCI SLM community initiatives in Ghana, including visits to other activities of interest. Review the draft workshop programme here: SCI-SLM Ghana 2012 - Draft Programme
2011
From 24 – 28 October 2011 the Third Project Steering Committee (PSC) Workshop of the SCI-SLM project was held in Kampala, Uganda. All the participating countries were represented in the workshop, including the TAG
team and UNEP. This year community members from the implementing countries were also included in the workshop to foster South-to-South learning and sharing. The workshop moved to Mbarara after the official opening in Kampala where the participants interacted with communities with SLM initiatives.
The proceedings of the Third PSC workshop in Uganda 2011 are presented in the following report SCI SLM WSHOP UGANDA FINAL REPORT.
2010
The Second Regional Steering Committee (RSC) meeting was held at the Institut National de Recherche en Agriculture – INRA, Rabat on 13 and 14 September 2010. The meeting was attended by country partners from Morocco, Ghana, South Africa, Netherlands and Uganda. The meeting was followed by a field visit to Ouneine - High Atlas between 15 and 17 September.
This report presents the proceedings of the workshop SCI-SLM 2010 Steering Commiteee Workshop Report.
2009
The Inception Workshop reported here was held from 17-19 September 2009 to formally launch the SCI-SLM project following the approval by the GEF Secretariat and the signing of the project cooperation agreement (PCA) between UNEP and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. This meeting also served as the initial Regional Steering Committee (RSC) meeting. The meeting was attended by the four country partners. The workshop allowed participants to understand the theory underpinning the SCI SLM project. Participants also emerged with a roadmap of how they were going to implement the project in their countries.
SCI-SLM Inception Workshop Report