Description/achievement of initiative
Bafut Ecovillage accelerates local climate action through implementation of ecovillage design education for sustainable development, using permaculture the African way. The project is designed under the auspices of the Global Ecovillage Network, GENAfrica, and International Permaculture Convergence, to promote sustainable lifestyles and education in Africa, and promote networking and sharing of information of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) between operators of African ecovillages and experts on climate change in local councils.
Implementation methodologies
Bafut Ecovillage combines indigenous knowledge and science in a concept called “Permaculture the African Way” which serves and facilitates the wider permaculture practices through ecovillage design education for sustainable development. By creating school and community gardens, Bafut Ecovillage is expanding areas available for food growing and maintenance of healthy ecosystems, developing water catchments, building wells and improving landscape design. The next big step is designing our worker-owned permaculture cooperative called BetterCOOP, and aligning it with other consumer cooperatives for enhancing sustainable lifestyles and education in Africa.
Arrangements for Capacity-Building and Technology Transfer
Youth entrepreneurship and adult education play a key role in our quest for sustainable solutions. Bafut Ecovillage is hosting workcamps and youth exchange initiatives with a vision of presenting creativity, and striving to reduce its carbon footprint under very austere conditions
Coordination mechanisms/governance structure
Better World Cameroon (BWC) monitors social enterprise development policy in Cameroon and aims to influence it, together with members of the Cameroon One World Linking Association (COWLA), NextGEN Association of Global Ecovillage Network GENAfrica, Transition to Resilience, Local Councils for Sustainability ICLEI International Permaculture Convergence IPC and Community University Partnerships CUPP of the University Brighton in all phases of planning and decision making. BWC, for example, produces expert opinions expressed on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and BridgeAfrika, and is heard both in European Institutions and at the national level in different ministries. Contact have been made with related ministries of our organizing partners: GEN, NICE Japan, Solidarites Jeuness France, and Voluntary Action for Peace UK, with the aim of promoting the knowledge of Cameroon NGOs involved with youth, women and environment on international development cooperation and their advocacy opportunities.The focus of BWC’s advocacy is on observing advocacy coherence for awareness raising and networking to influence the government’s decisions on youth development. BWC also observes the coherence between social development cooperation and other policy sectors, especially in development education, regenerative agriculture and environmental issues, and poverty and immigration among youth. Geographically, a special focus is on African youth inter-agency cooperation.The “Together for a Better World” international summer work camp is organized every year from August 1-21, and includes regular trainings on global education and international cooperation. Each year, BWC coordinates thematic working groups to exchange latest news on development education, the sustainable development goals, and non-formal youth education.
Partner(s)
LUSH Cosmetics, Ndanifor Gardens UK Trust, Global Ecovillage Network GENAfrica, International Permaculture Convergence, Cameroon Catalyst.
Progress reports
Goal 2
2.3 - By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment
2.4 - By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality
2.5 - By 2020, maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed and diversified seed and plant banks at the national, regional and international levels, and promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, as internationally agreed
2.a - Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries
Goal 8
8.2 - Achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation, including through a focus on high-value added and labour-intensive sectors
8.4 - Improve progressively, through 2030, global resource efficiency in consumption and production and endeavour to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, in accordance with the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production, with developed countries taking the lead
8.5 - By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value
Goal 12
12.1 - Implement the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production, all countries taking action, with developed countries taking the lead, taking into account the development and capabilities of developing countries
12.2 - By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
12.3 - By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses
12.4 - By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment
12.5 - By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
12.8 - By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature
12.b - Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products
Goal 13
13.2 - Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning
13.3 - Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning
13.a - Implement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible
13.b - Promote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing States, including focusing on women, youth and local and marginalized communities
* Acknowledging that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the primary international,
intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.
Goal 15
15.1 - By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements
15.2 - By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally
15.3 - By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world
15.4 - By 2030, ensure the conservation of mountain ecosystems, including their biodiversity, in order to enhance their capacity to provide benefits that are essential for sustainable development
15.5 - Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species
15.6 - Promote fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and promote appropriate access to such resources, as internationally agreed
15.8 - By 2020, introduce measures to prevent the introduction and significantly reduce the impact of invasive alien species on land and water ecosystems and control or eradicate the priority species
15.9 - By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies and accounts
Goal 17
17.1 - Strengthen domestic resource mobilization, including through international support to developing countries, to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection
17.3 - Mobilize additional financial resources for developing countries from multiple sources
17.4 - Assist developing countries in attaining long-term debt sustainability through coordinated policies aimed at fostering debt financing, debt relief and debt restructuring, as appropriate, and address the external debt of highly indebted poor countries to reduce debt distress
17.6 - Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through improved coordination among existing mechanisms, in particular at the United Nations level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism
17.7 - Promote the development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed
17.8 - Fully operationalize the technology bank and science, technology and innovation capacity-building mechanism for least developed countries by 2017 and enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology
17.9 - Enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the sustainable development goals, including through North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation
17.10 - Promote a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organization, including through the conclusion of negotiations under its Doha Development Agenda
17.11 - Significantly increase the exports of developing countries, in particular with a view to doubling the least developed countries’ share of global exports by 2020
17.14 - Enhance policy coherence for sustainable development
17.15 - Respect each country’s policy space and leadership to establish and implement policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development
Multi-stakeholder partnerships
17.16 - Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries
17.17 - Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships
Data, monitoring and accountability
17.18 - By 2020, enhance capacity-building support to developing countries, including for least developed countries and small island developing States, to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts
17.19 - By 2030, build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement gross domestic product, and support statistical capacity-building in developing countries
September 2016
