Community Environment Conservation Fund as a tool for Catalyzing Conservation and Enhancing Livelihoods

Community Environment Conservation Fund (CECF) is an enabling framework for communities to access micro-credit and undertake activities to improve their livelihoods in the short term while restoring and enhancing sustainable... [ view full abstract ]

Community Environment Conservation Fund (CECF) is an enabling framework for communities to access micro-credit and undertake activities to improve their livelihoods in the short term while restoring and enhancing sustainable management of their water and natural resources in the long term. The CECF has catalyzed communities to restore degraded mountain ecosystems, wetlands, farmlands, pastures, and landscapes, in addition to supporting establishment of natural resource governance frameworks in Uganda.

The CECF is an IUCN innovation which was first piloted in the Aswa catchment in Northern Uganda in 2012. In the last 5 years of its implementation, the initiative has successfully catalyzed community conservation including protection and management of over 227 water sources, restoration of over 600 hectares of degraded landscapes, demarcation and restoration of over 165 kilometers of river/stream banks, establishment of over 227 water committees to manage water sources, and enactment of community bylaws to govern use of natural resources. The CECF has also enhanced livelihoods through provision of micro-credit totaling to over $90,000. Over 90% of the 75,000 households have directly benefited from the CECF and have reported improvement in livelihoods from the enterprises they are engaged in. The CECF is a response to natural resource and livelihood challenges that the communities in Aswa have been facing which included landscape degradation mainly through indiscriminate cutting of trees for charcoal production, wetland degradation, and lack of natural resource governance structures and bylaws.

Due to the success of the CECF approach, it has been scaled out to other regions within Uganda (Karamoja, Rwizi catchment, Mt. Elgon), as well as piloted in other countries including Kenya (sharia compliant version in arid northern Kenya) and Malawi. In Kenya, the CECF is supporting pastoralist communities in the Lower Tana catchment improve natural resources governance and empower communities to claim their rights to resources while fulfilling their responsibilities in natural resource management. Currently, there are ongoing discussions to to scale up the CECF to Rwanda to catalyse forest and landscape restoration actions on the ground, and in Mozambique as a community incentive mechanism for coastal resilience.  At the National level in Uganda, the Ministry of Water and Environment has acknowledged this impactful approach and adopted it under the catchment based Integrated Water Resources Management.