To meet the needs of 9 billion people by 2050, food production will need to increase by an estimated 60 percent. In reaching this goal however, the world should be careful not to compromise the essential natural resources base (water, soil, and ecosystem services delivered by forests) that are central to improving production. Governments are asking for support to meet growing demands for food and energy, through resilient and sustainable systems. This is a unique opportunity to showcase the potential of Tree-based Ecosystem Approaches (TBEAs) to increase food security, enhance resilience and sequester carbon. Determining how to scale up TBEAs in an inclusive and accelerated manner could increase the impact of donor interventions in this area.

Jointly with the Netherlands, PROFOR is financing work on taking to scale tree-based ecosystem approaches that enhance food security, improve resilience to climate change and sequester carbon. This work seeks to identify the policy, institutional and non-policy measures that can accelerate the adoption at scale of TBEAs by looking at specific instances of success. The work aims to (i) create awareness and support for using ecosystem approaches to increase food security; (ii) identify the conditions that can lift barriers to implementing TBEAs that deliver a triple win at scale; and (iii) inform policy change for scaling up replicable models of these approaches.

As part of this effort, PROFOR hosted an expert meeting to discuss conditions for scaling up tree based ecosystem approaches on September 6, 2013 in Washington DC.

The objectives of the Expert Meeting were to:

• Share information from a recent State of Knowledge report on Scaling Up TBEAs
• Take stock of evidence and lessons regarding drivers of adoption at scale of these TBEAs
• Identify initial inputs into a framework on Scaling Up TBEAs

Presentations from this meeting are available on this page.