6 steps to build Africa’s nature economy
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At GLF Africa 2025, over 2,000 participants gathered together in Nairobi, Kenya, and online to reshape Africa’s future based on six strategic pillars rooted in the continent’s priorities, science, heritage and knowledge.
These pillars provide a practical framework for turning potential into reality, advancing a new nature-driven development model and positioning Africa as a global leader in shaping a sustainable future.
Pillar 1: Recognize, value and integrate Africa’s natural capital into all development plans
Africa has an unmatched opportunity to shift away from extractive and aid-dependent development paradigms and towards self-sustaining, dignified, regenerative and inclusive models
Goal: Recognize, value, mainstream and account for all of Africa’s natural capital in the ecological, economic and social dimensions of its development planning.
What’s working: Across the continent, bold initiatives are proving that valuing natural capital can transform landscapes, economies and livelihoods. These initiatives are restoring millions of hectares through initiatives like Regreening Africa, AFR100 and the Great Green Wall Initiative, conserving the Congo Basin with OFAC, restoring Ghana’s cocoa landscapes, driving ecotourism in Kenya, mapping Rwanda’s natural capital and drawing up South Africa’s bioeconomy strategy. Farmworks Africa is boosting farmers’ market access, while the African Natural Capital Alliance is mobilizing the financial sector and policymakers to integrate nature-related risks and investments.
These successes prove that natural capital planning works – and now, it’s time to make it the norm across the continent.
GLF Africa 2025 Session on nature economy-driven development
Action points:
- African governments should adopt bioeconomy strategies that prioritize sustainable biomass use, circularity and value retention, ensuring at least 50% of natural capital value is kept on the continent rather than being exported or used in raw form.
- Practitioners and investors must scale regenerative agriculture and land use by investing in farmer- and community-led restoration initiatives that combine local knowledge with market access.
- Public and private actors should boost nature-based enterprises by creating incentives, easing market access, supporting procurement schemes and fostering hubs for restoration, eco-tourism and green supply chains.
- Public and private sectors should collaborate to build value ‘webs’ by integrating biotechnology, natural products and commodity development into restoration economies to cut waste and capture more of Africa’s natural capital value.
Pillar 2: Build effective and responsive governance and policies for natural resource stewardship
To realize the potential of Africa’s nature economy, we must advocate for, support and develop effective, inclusive and transparent governance systems.
Goal: Build coherent and responsive governance architecture to support ecological restoration, safeguard community rights and interests, integrate nature-based solutions into national development planning and safeguard the value of Africa’s natural capital.
What’s working: Important steps are being taken towards the sustainable governance of Africa’s natural resources. Namibia has boosted biodiversity and income by devolving conservation rights to communities. The Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa (AGIA) is helping governments scale green infrastructure. Ghana’s Ministry of Finance has developed a green finance taxonomy with incentives to guide carbon and biodiversity markets.
To take these efforts to the next level, public and private stakeholders must now unite to scale successes and bridge governance silos.
GLF Africa 2025 Session on stewarding Africa’s nature economy
Action points:
- Governments must adopt responsive, proactive and inclusive systems that bridge silos across ministries and other stakeholders such as civil society, the private sector, academia and local communities
- Policymakers and development actors must integrate ecological infrastructure into development frameworks and recognize it as essential to economic and social sustainability.
- Governments should create policy incentives such as green tax credits, subsidy reforms and support for multifunctional landscapes.
- Institutions at all levels must ensure policy enforcement and transparency in land restoration and the stewardship of biodiversity and natural resources.
Pillar 3: Secure the rights and support the agency of local communities, Indigenous Peoples, youth and women
A fully developed nature economy could transform the livelihoods of Africa’s communities and serve as an engine for rural development.
Goal: Support increased agency for local communities, promote social cohesion, reduce conflict over land and resources, and facilitate greater local ownership and equitable sharing of the benefits associated with an African nature economy.
What’s working: For Africa’s nature economy to thrive, it must shift from colonial top-down models to community-led, rights-based pathways. Across the continent, local governance is thriving through self-organized forest charters in West Africa, climate justice mobilization by the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) and rights advocacy by the Rights and Resources Initiative. Young people are also leading the way with programs like Inuka, which funds and supports restoration initiatives that create impact and sustainable livelihoods.
GLF Africa 2025 Community engagement sessions:
- The land beneath: Confronting challenges to secure rights, land restoration and livelihoods
- Scaling up farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR): Action in Ethiopia and Kenya
Action points:
- Policymakers must adopt community-informed development planning that respects the diverse values of nature, including spiritual, cultural and socio-economic connections.
- Restoration and nature economy actors must promote the active participation of youth, women and Indigenous Peoples in their initiatives as designers, implementers and beneficiaries.
- Development actors should combine peace-building initiatives with community-led development models, especially in fragile and conflict areas such as the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.
- Policymakers and civil society actors must protect and formalize land tenure – especially customary tenure – to avoid displacement and ensure local stewardship.
Pillar 4: Deliver sustainable finance to the last mile
Less than 5% of climate finance goes to African farmers, Indigenous stewards and women, who could serve as key players in locally-led, high-impact nature economy investment.
Goal: Restructure financial mechanisms and scale nature-positive finance to benefit both communities and ecosystems through impact investments, rather than focusing solely on maximizing financial returns.
What’s working: Models like Kenya’s Livelihoods Fund and green bonds in Ghana and Nigeria show the impact of channeling finance to the frontlines. Institutions such as the African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association are strengthening financial institutions to lend affordably to agriculture, while venture builders like The Catalyst Fund, Le Groupe Crédit Agricole du Maroc and Tamwil El Fellah invest in entrepreneurs, innovators and farmers across the continent. Initiatives like the W+ Standard by Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (WOCAN) are directing adaptation resources to women, and institutions like the Barka Fund are building pre-investment readiness and aggregating small producers. Meanwhile, fintech solutions such as M-PESA are driving financial inclusion, transparency and traceability.
GLF Africa 2025 Sustainable Finance Session:
Action points:
- Governments should develop innovative financing instruments such as incentive-based risk sharing, blended finance platforms and green bonds linked to restoration outcomes.
- Public- and private-sector actors should promote financial inclusion by expanding insurance and local microfinance for smallholder farmers, digital savings tools and climate resilience credit lines.
- Such actors must also ensure transparency in financial flows by tracking, auditing and redirecting harmful subsidies towards green innovation and incentivizing nature-aligned investment portfolios.
- Policymakers should establish green finance taxonomies and investment pipelines that align investor criteria such as science-based targets, Indigenous rights and additionality with community-led project design.
- Development banks must ensure free, prior and informed consent in all nature-sensitive investments.
- The private and financial sectors should promote patient and intelligent capital to unlock the long-term potential of nature-based micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)).
Pillar 5: Optimize AI and emerging technologies for Africa
Artificial intelligence and emerging digital innovations can help Africa leapfrog into a resilient, prosperous and data-driven nature economy.
Goal: An inclusive and localized digital infrastructure grounded in local contexts, fully optimizes local knowledge and data – as desired by local knowledge holders – and links human, natural and digital capitals.
What’s working: From AI-powered early warning systems in Mozambique to blockchain land tenure and drone-based crop tools in Ghana, digital innovations are transforming Africa’s nature economy. In Kenya, AI is easing supply chain bottlenecks and improving soil testing, while the Kenya Space Agency is expanding cloud power and data access. Initiatives like the Women in STEM Leaders Network are breaking gender barriers, while in Southern Africa, Vambo AI has built an AI infrastructure trained in 200+ African languages, and the FAIR Forward program is driving AI democratization through inclusive policies and open datasets. Deep-tech startups like Amini AI are delivering hyperlocal environmental insights to farmers, insurers and governments. These applications must be scaled up and democratized to fully unlock their potential.
GLF Africa 2025 AI
Action points:
- Governments and academia must invest in AI education and infrastructure, including curricula in schools and partnerships with AI developers.
- Tech companies must build inclusive, multilingual, farmer-centric tools using AI and mobile platforms tailored to local knowledge systems.
- All involved stakeholders must foster open collaboration between tech innovators, local leaders and knowledge holders to develop agtech solutions that address real needs and support data sovereignty.
- Governments and restoration/development actors should use AI, geospatial technologies and satellite data to improve land use planning, monitor restoration, identify degradation risks and track project outcomes.
Pillar 6: Harness and integrate Africa’s plural knowledge systems
Africa’s strength lies in combining traditional and scientific knowledge, making both equal foundations for evidence-based, inclusive, and resilient landscape management.
Goal: Consistently integrate traditional, Indigenous and scientific knowledge systems into natural resource governance frameworks.
What’s working: On-ground evidence shows that blending diverse knowledge sources can drive ownership, passion for stewardship, benefit sharing and better decision making in a nature economy. In sub-Saharan Africa, initiatives like Regreening Africa, Knowledge for Great Green Wall Action (K4GGWA) and the GGWI use dialogue and iterative learning to integrate science, community insights and practitioner experience into adaptive management. In Tanzania’s Maasai landscapes, Afriscout, an AI tool co-created with local communities, – is helping livestock keepers make evidence-based grazing decisions while digitalizing traditional rotational systems.
GLF Africa 2025 Session on Knowledge Systems:
Action points:
- Universities, community groups, policymakers and practitioners should build partnerships to institutionalize spaces for knowledge co-creation.
- Community members and researchers should digitize and document traditional ecological knowledge to preserve and integrate it into modern restoration science and planning.
- All stakeholders involved in producing and using knowledge should invest in developing participatory learning and data platforms and dashboards with community validation and access.
- Landscape actors should promote long-term trust building and iterative learning in landscape restoration, prioritizing safe dialogue spaces for evidence sharing.
