REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS: Feasibility Study for a Scalable and Inclusive Restoration Model in Ghana
SUMMARY
WRI intends to award a Fixed Price type contract to conduct a feasibility study on a scalable restoration model for degraded and deforested lands in Ghana. The study will assess the biophysical, social, legal, and economic factors that influence restoration outcomes, focusing on land tenure, gender equity, community empowerment, and private sector engagement. The study is expected to be completed by July 2025. Proposals must be submitted by January 27th , 2025.
About the World Resources Institute:
Founded in 1982, The World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global environmental think tank that goes beyond research to put ideas into action. We work with governments, companies, and civil society to build solutions to urgent environmental challenges. WRI’s transformative ideas protect the earth and promote development because sustainability is essential to meeting human needs and fulfilling human aspirations in the future.
About the Global Restoration Initiative :
The WRI Global Restoration Initiative works to restore vitality to degraded landscapes worldwide by catalyzing ambitious commitments, supporting effective implementation, and fostering financial investments in restoration. With a focus on scaling locally led and inclusive restoration efforts, the initiative brings together governments, communities, private sector actors, and civil society to unlock the environmental, social, and economic benefits of restoration. In Africa, the initiative plays a critical role in advancing the AFR100 initiative, a country-led effort to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. WRI collaborates with partners across the continent to build capacity, mobilize funding, and implement restoration projects that promote biodiversity, enhance livelihoods, and support climate resilience. By leveraging innovative tools, data, and partnerships, WRI drives impactful restoration efforts that transform degraded landscapes into thriving ecosystems.
About the Land and Resources Right Initiative:
The WRI Land and Resource Rights Initiative focuses on strengthening land tenure and resource governance to support sustainable development, climate resilience, and ecosystem restoration. The initiative works to ensure that land-connected communities, including Indigenous Peoples, women, and other marginalized groups, have secure land rights and equitable access to natural resources. Through research, partnerships, and policy engagement, the initiative aims to address structural drivers of inequity and tenure insecurity that undermine restoration and conservation efforts.
BACKGROUND
The Role of Land Tenure and Governance in Sustaining Restoration Outcomes:
A growing body of research suggests that for a restoration program to be successful in terms of people (intentionally considering women and men), nature, and climate, and for the success to be sustained, land tenure and governance - as well as other structural drivers of inequity, poverty, and short-term yield driven behaviours - must be addressed. Land tenure insecurity in particular, presents risks to the long term success of restoration outcomes.[1] Because tenure and land governance influence how restoration costs and benefits are distributed, they are likely to play an important role in determining whether land-connected people have sufficient incentive to invest in restoration practices.[2]
Experience suggests that for large-scale land-based investments by the private sector to result in positive outcomes for landholding communities through the equitable sharing of benefits and impacts, they should be developed based on best practices, standards and principles. Standards of particular relevance include the Guiding Principles on Land Based Investments in Africa,[3] IFC Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability (particularity its standard PS7 on Indigenous Peoples and FPIC), the Operational Guidelines for Responsible Land Based Investments,[4] the Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Governance of Land Forest and Fisheries,[5] and Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems.[6] There are scant examples of restoration projects that assess tenure dynamics to ensure equitable outcomes and alignment with such standards. A tenure diagnostic tool for restoration projects provides a framework that could be tested and adapted for this context.[7]
Land Degradation and Restoration Opportunities in Ghana:
Land degradation in Ghana is attributed to overexploitation of natural resources through illegal and unsustainable logging and mining and agricultural expansion, coupled with land tenure insecurity and the impacts of a changing climate.[8] For example, between 2010-2024, Ashanti and Eastern regions had the second and third-highest deforestation rates in the country, respectively.[9] Restoration projects are ongoing in certain regions of Ghana, some of which employ the participation of farmers, yet agricultural expansion exerts more pressure on the remaining dense forest. Agricultural intensification on existing farmlands may reduce farm expansion into the remaining forest areas; and mixed tree-crop systems could reduce deforestation due to conversion of land for farming, limit the clearance of trees from farmlands, enhance the provision of ecosystem services, and improve the soil's fertility and moisture content.[10]
Based on WRI restoration team’s meetings held in early 2024 with chiefs, private sector, and other stakeholders in Ghana, there appears to be interest in engaging in large-scale restoration of degraded areas that is both empowering and beneficial for communities and also commercially viable. Such a multistakeholder initiative could result in restoration at scale through intensive/mixed tree crop agriculture using methods that enhance provision of ecosystem services, improve soil fertility and moisture content, and uses a model that provides sustained and equitable benefit sharing with local communities who live, depend on, and have rights and interests in the lands.
SCOPE OF THE PRE- FEASIBILITY STUDY
Objectives This study is intended to assess the feasibility and inform design of a model of restoration of degraded lands that (a) is driven by a commitment to recognize, protect, and promote land rights, (b) produces tangible benefits for women and men landholders, (c) produces a return on investment that is sufficient to maintain commercial viability, (d) results in successful restoration of degraded landscapes at scale in Ghana, and that (e) conforms with international best practice for engaging with, gaining consent from, and empowering communities.
Key Questions:
The feasibility study will seek to answer the following overarching questions for the cocoa belt in Ghana (specific locations to be determined):