World Agroforestry Centre Annual Report 2005: Agroforestry science to support the millennium development goals

In 2005, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) unveiled a new 10-year (2005–2015) vision for a global AgroforestryTransformation throughout the developing world. The new vision, communicated in the form of a modest 38-page publication entitled ‘Trees of Change’, builds on nearly three decades of agroforestry research, development-support and education programmes. ICRAF’s experience has shown that the science of agroforestry can play a significant role in creating innovative solutions to the increasingly complex problems faced by smallholder farmers. These include the challenges posed by widespread poverty, hunger and malnutrition, and land tenure conflicts. In addition, global climate change, land degradation, and loss of biodiversity are pervasive problems that require immediate attention. Agroforestry is ready to be mainstreamed into global and national efforts to reduce poverty, improve food security, and sustain newly emerging environmental management agendas. The Centre and its partners are positioned to foster impacts that will help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), benefit tens of millions of people living in rural areas, and stabilise the fragile environments from which they earn their livelihoods. The groundwork has been laid, but much remains to be done to institutionalize agroforestry in the world’s development agenda. This will be key to ICRAF’s role in fostering an Agroforestry Transformation. Trees of Change describes the role that science-based agroforestry can play in meeting key international objectives and how developing countries can use agroforestry to achieve manyof the MDGs.

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