Transforming Landscapes in the Greater Rusizi Basin and Great Rift Valley

The Bezos Earth Fund supports Africa's locally-led restoration movement, AFR100, which is working to bring 100 million hectares of degraded land into restoration by 2030. These efforts contribute to global restoration targets and initiatives including the New York Declaration on Forests and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

Specifically, this project aims to accelerate restoration in the Rusizi Basin, part of the broader Congo Basin ecosystem, and in the Great Rift Valley, home to critically important forests and a breadbasket in East Africa.

Small businesses and community projects will receive grants and loans through the TerraFund platform to restore these landscapes. Projects will be monitored using the TerraFund monitoring, reporting, and verification protocol. This implementation finance will be paired with technical assistance , monitoring support, and mentor networks to help implementing groups scale up efforts. The project contributes to AFR100’s target to mobilize $2 billion in implementation finance, and builds on a 2021 grant for a "Top 100" restoration enterprises and projects and a 2020 grant to develop restoration monitoring technology through the Land and Carbon Lab.