PERMACULTURE THE AFRICAN WAY
The concept of Permaculture was coined by scientists and we are adapting it to traditional forms of agriculture and environmental protection in the African fashion, which is considered ecologically, socially, economically and spiritually friendly.
Permaculture the African Way has been designed by Better World Cameroon - BWC NGO through the Spirit of Ndanifor concept and the Regenerative Education Program to support equity and inclusiveness, strengthen african agricultural research and promote development towards improved food systems.
At the core of Permaculture the African Way is how to bring appropriate technology solutions to scale at the grassroots, and combat issues such as climate change, pest and disease and access to funds for farmers. It aims to increase investment in research and global awareness on hunger and famines in Africa.
The main objective of Permaculture the African Way is to provide a platform for key stakeholders in the agricultural sector to benefit from research into African idigenous wisdom in farming for sustainable development. It is also a sustainable development space to discuss salient options of Permaculture principles and mechanisms and to strengthen the food system on the African continent. The concept of Ndanifor as a sustainable education space allows participants to think through how to catalyze a repositioning of African regenerative agriculture for the attainment of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement within the UN Agenda 2030.
The specific objectives are:
Permaculture the African Way emphasizes organic farming and sustainable development brokering at the grassroots, and expanded interdisciplinary collaborative dialogue between experts and indigenous knowledge practitioners in diverse communities.
It aims to offer the new emerging generations of sustainability practitioners a richer knowledge of the opportunities offered by African wisdom and landscape economy. It promotes food sovereignty by reconnecting the people to their rich cultural food heritage to transform food insecurity and malnutrition through food consciousness training. It provides local consultancy in food as medicine to farmers and cooperatives as an incentive for affordable healthy diets sustainably and inclusively (SDG 2).
As a system’s change program, it does not target structures of business as usual but builds heart to heart connections between under development and people of the North.
In the program, two pilot centers are working in close collaboration with African Peace Village to organize training in collaboration with Global Ecovillage Network GENAfrica. The focus is on transitioning African Peace Village to resilience using Permaculture design principles, for diversity and inclusion and using regenerative living as the canvas for weaving into larger food networks within the UN food system for impact (SDG 17).
BWC NGO started the journey of developing Permaculture the African Way when it joined the African symposium on ecovillages and vibrant Permaculture initiatives organized in Sekem Egypt in 2012 where GENAfrica was formed, BWC NGO consolidated Permaculture the African Way as and education concept in an Ecovillage Design Course in Sieben Linden Germany 2013, and a Transition to Resilience Training in Findhorn Ecovillage Scotland 2014. It has been enriched by Training in Water Retention Landscapes & Healing Biotopes(Tamera-Portugal),in 2014, to become the most inspiring project from GENAfrica.
Significant progress has been made to develop partnerships with the UN SDG Catalyst Group and professional relations built with UNDP’s Conscious Food movement CoFSA.