Investing in Agroforestry: A Strategy for Building Climate Resilience

Restoring degraded rural landscapes is essential for adapting to climate change and ensuring food and nutrition security, especially among poor and vulnerable communities. In upstream watersheds, healthy soils, vegetation, and water systems act as natural buffers by stabilizing land to prevent landslides and floods downstream. These regulate water flows to lessen drought risk and reduce local temperatures during heatwaves. Restoration also supports diversified ecosystems that sustain a wider range of crops, wild foods, and livestock than there otherwise might be, which cuts the risk of harvest failure under extreme weather. Agroforestry, a land use management system that integrates trees, crops, and livestock, plays a key role in this effort. In a landscape, agroforestry creates multifunctional and sustainable systems connecting nature, agriculture, and communities.

Through case studies undertaken in three priority watersheds in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and the Philippines, this paper outlines some of the main barriers to the adoption and scaling of agroforestry practices. It identifies opportunities for increased public and private sector participation, including the required enabling environment that can help guide investment programming and support evidence-based decision-making in agroforestry. 

Contents 

• Background and Rationale 
• The Benefits of Agroforestry Systems 
• Country Case Studies 
• Barriers and Responses to Upscaling Agroforestry 
• Findings and Recommendations