Forest, Climate and Natural Resource Governance

I served as an intern in forest, climate change, environmental, natural resource, and sustainable development law and policy at the African Union Commission, Division of Environment, Climate Change, Natural Resource, Water and Land Management, Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In this role, I contributed to the development, analysis and implementation of African environmental, forest, climate change, natural resource management and sustainable development policies and strategies. My work focused on community-based and participatory approaches to forest, land and water management, including Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM), Joint Forest Management (JFM), Collaborative Forest Management (CFM), Participatory Forest Management (PFM), Social Forestry (SF), Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM), Community Forestry (CF), Participatory Land Management (PLM), Community-Based Water Resource Management (CBWRM) and related frameworks.

I was involved in technical and legal analysis on forest categorisation and resource assessment, local forest governance, income generation and markets linked to forest resources, forest dependency and the recognition of local and community rights. My tasks also included work on forest management agreements and contracts, gender mainstreaming in forest governance, land-use planning, land tenure, ownership and possession of land and water, as well as broader policy and legal analysis in these domains. I contributed to initiatives such as the Africa Land Policy Initiative, African water policy and strategy implementation (including the African Water Vision for 2025), integrated water and land resource management, and regional, national and local conservation programmes. This included engagement with the African Agriculture Growth Project (AAGP), the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), African food security and livelihood programmes and the Climate-Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy.

My experience also covers the use of Management Information Systems (MIS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Business Information Systems (BIS) for natural resource monitoring (forest, land and water) and biodiversity conservation, national forest programmes and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). I contributed to assessments and policy work related to major initiatives such as the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam project on the Nile River, irrigation and drainage development in northern Ethiopia, Nile Basin Initiative programmes, and the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel. I worked on issues of rights, contracts, leases, tenure, titles, certificates, rent, management agreements and action plans for forest, land and water, as well as the coherence of continental, regional and national policies with international legal instruments and multilateral environmental agreements.

Furthermore, I engaged with themes of decentralisation and devolution of forest, land and water administration; cross-sector policy coherence; gender mainstreaming in environmental, forest, land and water governance; African forest policy and strategy implementation; climate risk reduction, adaptation and mitigation; and regional and local governance frameworks such as the Lake Tana (Ethiopia) hydroelectric, irrigation and tourism development project and the Akaki River pollution control and conservation roadmap. My work also touched on institutional capacity-building, ICT applications in resource governance, political commitment, data and records management, collective decision-making and adaptive strategies in environmental and natural resource administration.

Drawing on this background, I am strongly motivated and fully prepared to contribute as an active member of the WEEC Network and the Club of Rome.