Launch of the Ecosystem Resilience and Women's Leadership Project (RÉELS)

Four organizations (CECI, IUCN, CIFOR-ICRF and WILDAF) join forces to promote ecosystem resilience and women's leadership in cross-border areas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. A regional workshop kicks off the activities.

From February 12 to 14, 2024, those involved in the implementation of the REELS project, piloted by CECI and its partners, met for a workshop to get their acts together and launch the start of activities.

For three days, the REELS project team got together to discuss the activities pre-approved in the Implementation Plan, to ensure that everyone was on the same wavelength, to set deadlines, to discuss difficulties and find solutions to overcome them, based on each other's success stories.

According to B.M. Director of the REELS project, the project is in the process of being set up in the three countries, despite the context of insecurity and the ECOWAS sanctions impacting on the Niger side. "This workshop is a framework for strengthening the team spirit, as it enables us to forge links and break down barriers between colleagues. It's also an opportunity to take stock with our implementing partners - IUCN, CIFRO-ICRAF and WILDAF - to ensure synergy in planning across the three countries," he adds.

The REELS project, which will run for five years (April 2023-March 2028), aims to foster the adoption and implementation, by women and their communities, of solutions adapted to meet the challenges of adapting to climate change, promoting co-benefits for ecosystems, all with increased transformational leadership by women throughout these processes.

The project will be implemented mainly in 8 regions of the 3 intervention countries, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, in the so-called three-border zone (Liptako-Gourma), and will directly target 1,061,508 people, including 749,891 women, and more than 151,820 internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Find out more about the project

_{The RÉELS project is implemented by CECI with financial support from the Government of Canada, through Global Affairs Canada.}