From restoration targets to measurable progress: countries advancing restoration monitoring and reporting in Nairobi

30/01/2026

With only 29 days left for countries to submit their Seventh National Reports under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), attention is shifting from setting restoration targets to demonstrating progress against them.

Target 2 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) sets a clear ambition as the global restoration target: by 2030, at least 30 per cent of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and marine and coastal ecosystems should be under effective restoration. For many countries, however, the challenge is no longer whether restoration should happen, but how to monitor it in a way that is credible, comparable, and useful for decision-making.

Across regions, restoration is already underway, and countries are actively working to strengthen how progress is tracked in a consistent and meaningful way. Countries face common challenges: incomplete or outdated baselines, evolving definitions of degradation and restoration, limited coordination between institutions, and data that are collected for different purposes but not easily combined for national reporting. At the same time, reporting requirements are becoming more specific, with new headline indicators and expectations to report across ecosystem types using harmonized methodologies.

With national reporting deadlines approaching, monitoring and reporting ecosystem restoration is no longer a future task. It is an immediate one.

In response to these needs, FAO and the CBD Secretariat, in collaboration with multiple partners, are supporting countries and regions through the Target 2 Road Map, working in close collaboration with regional technical centres to strengthen monitoring and reporting systems in a coordinated and sustained way.

“Meeting global restoration commitments depends on strong regional capacity,” said Julian Fox, Team Leader for Forest Monitoring and Data Platforms at FAO. “By supporting regional centres and learning from their experience, we can better connect national efforts with regional cooperation and global reporting under the Global Biodiversity Framework.”

This support has been kicked off through a series of regional workshops in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The Subregional Workshop on Biodiversity Monitoring and Reporting held this week from 27 to 30 January 2026 at RCMRD’s campus in Nairobi, Kenya, was the last in the series. The workshop, focused on Target 2, was organized through RCMRD in its role as a regional technical and scientific cooperation support centre, in collaboration with the FAO, the CBD Secretariat, Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), and funded by the Government of the United Kingdom through the AIM4NatuRe (Accelerating Innovative Monitoring for Nature Restoration) initiative.

The meeting brought together representatives from Comoros, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Zambia, alongside regional technical support centres and international partners. It marked a practical step in supporting countries as they move from restoration commitments to implementation and reporting.

Yelena Finegold, FAO Technical Lead of Restoration Monitoring: “The Regional Workshops are part of the Target 2 Roadmap, which offers the shared route we can all follow. The Roadmap brings together a wide community of partners, all working to provide clear methodological guidance and harmonized approaches so countries are not travelling this road alone.”

Dr. Emmanuel Nkurunziza, RCMRD’s Director General, highlighted the role of RCMRD: “With its new role as a Subregional Technical and Scientific Cooperation Support Centre, RCMRD is ready to support countries with the data, tools, and coordination needed to deliver on Target 2”.

Working through the practical “how.”

Over four days, participants worked through the core elements of monitoring and reporting ecosystem restoration under Target 2.

Early sessions focused on unpacking Target 2 itself: how degradation is understood across terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine ecosystems; how baselines are defined; and how national restoration targets link to global commitments. Countries shared experiences in assessing degradation and implementing restoration, highlighting both progress and persistent gaps.

The workshop then moved into the mechanics of reporting. FAO led sessions on monitoring and reporting pathways for Target 2, including practical demonstrations of the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring (FERM). Participants explored how restoration data can be reported, compiled, reviewed, and validated, and how national monitoring systems can be aligned with global reporting requirements under the Convention.

Country presentations on restoration monitoring linked to initiatives such as African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) provided concrete examples of how data are being used – and where challenges remain. Breakout sessions allowed participants to work through issues such as data harmonization, disaggregation, validation, and sharing, drawing on their own national experiences.

Throughout the workshop, emphasis was placed on coordination: between institutions, across sectors, and between national and subnational levels.

Learning from the field

To ground discussions in practice, participants visited CIFOR-ICRAF and took part in a field visit to Karura Forest in Nairobi, one of the largest urban forests in the world, with 1 041.3 hectare.

The visit showcased restoration planning, nursery and indigenous seed systems, invasive species removal, restoration plots and monitoring approaches in an urban forest context.  Seeing restoration on the ground helped reinforce a key point raised throughout the workshop: community engagement and involvement is central to ecosystem restoration and monitoring systems need to be flexible enough to reflect local realities, while still feeding into coherent national and global reporting frameworks.

A new way of delivering support

To scale the support provided to countries, FAO is increasingly working through regional technical centres, nominated through the CBD to contribute to the development of global guidance and continue delivering sustained technical assistance to their respective constituent countries.

RCMRD plays this role for Eastern and Southern Africa. During the workshop, RCMRD officially launched its mandate as a Sub-Regional Technical and Scientific Cooperation Support Centre, including the establishment of its steering committee. This creates a dedicated regional platform for technical backstopping, peer exchange and coordination on restoration monitoring and reporting.

The Nairobi workshop is part of a broader series of subregional dialogues being organized to support countries ahead of upcoming biodiversity reporting milestones.

Lessons and outcomes from Nairobi and other workshops will inform global policy discussions, including the Sixth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, to be held in February 2026 at FAO headquarters in Rome, where Parties will consider the Target 2 Road Map information document on the implementation of the Target, drawing on inputs from recent subregional workshops such as the Nairobi meeting.

By linking country-level technical work with regional coordination and global policy processes, this approach aims to strengthen both implementation and reporting – ensuring that global assessments of restoration progress are grounded in national realities.