International Tree Foundation announces Sustainable Community Forestry Programme

Deadline: 30 September 2019

International Tree Foundation (ITF), supported by the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund is currently accepting applications for its Sustainable Community Forestry (SCF) Programme that aims to support community scale projects in Commonwealth Countries in Africa that will:

• Conserve, restore and protect forests, habitats and biodiversity
• Support community-led forest restoration
• Improve nutrition, food security and livelihoods through sustainable use of trees

Funding Priorities

Priorities for the SCF Programme are to support community-based tree planting initiatives that:

• Grow at least 3,000 to 5,000 trees per £1,000 of grant funding
• Mobilise communities to tackle deforestation
• Improve nutrition, food security, incomes and local livelihoods
• Support communities’ rights to manage natural resources in a sustainable way
• Mitigate the negative impacts of climate change
• Preserve and promote indigenous knowledge of natural resource management

ITF aims to support organisations that are based within or close to their community, and which represent the interests of the local community, including women and vulnerable groups. ITF aims to help such community-based organisations build their capacity.

Funding Information

• A maximum of £3,000 per year is available for projects of up to 2 years duration.
• Up to £600 is available additionally to address agreed capacity building needs of the organisation, subject to discussion with ITF.

 Approach

ITF’s support to grantees is based on the following principles:

• Partnership
• Accessibility
• Transparency
• Ethics
• Self-evaluation and assessment
• Learning and sharing
• Capacity building

Eligibility Criteria

• To be eligible for the SCF programme in 2019:
  • The proposed project must take place in a Commonwealth country of Africa (mentioned below)
  • Organisation must be a registered NGO or CBO in the country where the project will take place
  • Organisation must have a bank account in its name
  • Applicants EOI must meet the basic requirements of this call:
    • Project duration: up to 2 years
    • Budget attached
    • Tree planting plan attached
    • Organisation’s registration or governance document attached
    • 6 photos attached of the field activities carried out in the last year with explanation and location of the activity
• Organisations that submit eligible applications will be invited to submit a full proposal.

Assessment Criteria

• Goal and outcomes
  • How well does the project meet the funding criteria?
  • Are the intended outcomes appropriate, realistic and achievable?
• Communities
  • Are the needs of participants defined and addressed?
  • How realistic are the numbers?
  • Who will benefit and how?
• Participation
  • How will community members and stakeholders be involved in the delivery and monitoring of the project?
• Design
  • Are the project activities well designed to deliver the expected results?
• Budget
  • Is the budget realistic and consistent with the planned actions?
  • Are overheads reasonable?
• Tree planting
  • Will a minimum of 3,000 to 5,000 trees be planted per £1,000 in grant funding?
  • Does the tree planting plan indicate the use of indigenous species for reforestation, and multipurpose trees including indigenous species for agroforestry?
• Alignment and sustainability
  • How well does the project fit with national forest sector policies and priorities, poverty reduction strategies?
  • How will the project activities and benefits be sustained after the end of the project?
• Awareness raising and learning
  • How appropriate are any awareness raising activities?
  • How will the learning from this project be captured and disseminated?
• Monitoring and evaluation
  • How appropriate are the plans to monitor project activities and evaluate outcomes?
  • How will you know if the project has been successful?
• Capacity
  • Does the organisation have a track record of carrying out similar activities?
  • Does the proposal display knowledge of the activities, risks and challenges?
  • Are sources of advice identified? Is the organisation able to identify its capacity-building needs?

Current Projects:

• Ghana: Montonnso Sacred Forest Conservation
• Uganda: Tree Planting For Poverty Reduction And Improved Livelihoods
• Uganda: Trees in Schools and Communities
• Cameroon: How to Make a Food Forest
• Madagascar: Communities Showcases of Nature
• Madagascar: Empower the Community to Protect the Forest Corridor
• Tanzania: Indigenous Tree Planting for Climate Change Resilience
• Cameroon: Women Empowerment through Enhancing Agroforestry

Recent Projects Funded:

• Mangoes for Livelihoods in the Rwenzoris
• Tree planting project is the talk of the day in Lundazi, Zambia
• The Pocket Forest: Biodiversity for Kafuga, Uganda
• Forest Food Buffer: Dom Forest, Cameroon
• Mount Kenya Forest Tree Planting, Kenya
• Community Engagement in Forestry, Malawi
• Trees for Communities, Uganda
• Green Our Environment, Uganda
• Community Tree Planting Initiative, Uganda
• African Blackwood Conservation, Tanzania
• Bamboutos Montane Forest Project, Cameroon

How to Apply

The completed Expressions of Interest should be submitted by email at the address given on the website.

Eligible Countries: Botswana, Cameroon, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Kingdom of eSwatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia.

For more information, please visit https://internationaltreefoundation.org/sustainable-community-forestry/