📅 Dates: 5–6 May 2026
📍 Venue: ILRI Campus, Addis Ababa & Online (Zoom)

About the Event

The African Forest Forum (AFF), in partnership with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), is convening a National Policy Dialogue in Ethiopia to advance inclusive, deforestation-free green value chains and strengthen youth engagement in sustainable land management.

This dialogue is part of a multi-country initiative titled:
“Scaling Youth-Led Climate Innovations for a Greener Africa: Enhancing Compliance with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) through Sustainable Land Management and Landscape Restoration.”

The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) introduces new requirements to ensure that commodities entering the EU market are not linked to deforestation or forest degradation. While this creates opportunities for improved market access, it also presents challenges—particularly for smallholder farmers, youth, women, and MSMEs.

In Ethiopia, key export commodities such as coffee and forest-based products are directly impacted. Addressing gaps in awareness, traceability systems, and compliance capacity is critical to ensuring inclusive participation and safeguarding livelihoods.

Why This Dialogue Matters

Ethiopia’s development priorities—including the Ten-Year Development Plan and Climate-Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) Strategy—emphasize sustainable natural resource management, green growth, and job creation. However, structural challenges such as limited access to finance, land tenure constraints, and weak market integration continue to hinder inclusive participation, especially among youth and women.

This dialogue provides a national platform to:

• Strengthen policy and institutional frameworks for EUDR compliance
• Enhance traceability systems accessible to smallholders and youth
• Promote youth and women’s participation in green value chains
• Align trade, agriculture, and environmental policies with sustainability standards 

Objectives

Overall Objective:
To enhance Ethiopia’s readiness for EUDR implementation while promoting inclusive, youth-driven green value chains.

Specific Objectives:

• Assess national preparedness for EUDR compliance
• Examine socio-economic implications for smallholders, youth, women, and forest-dependent communities
• Identify mechanisms to strengthen inclusive participation in green value chains
• Develop a national roadmap and policy recommendations
• Expected Outcomes
• Increased awareness of EUDR requirements and compliance pathways
• Validation of findings on socio-economic impacts in Ethiopia
• Jointly developed policy recommendations and a national roadmap
• Initiation of a Youth Capacity Accelerator and Knowledge Network (CaKN)
• Participants

The dialogue will bring together:

• Government representatives (forestry, agriculture, trade, environment, youth sectors)
• Youth leaders and green entrepreneurs
• Private sector actors and MSMEs
• Civil society, research institutions, and development partners
• Organizers
• African Forest Forum (AFF): Overall coordination, technical leadership, facilitation, and reporting
• Ethiopian Forestry Development (EFD): Policy leadership, stakeholder mobilization, and strategic guidance
• AGRA: Resource support and strategic contributions 

Join the Dialogue

Topic: National Policy Dialogue: Deforestation-Free Green Value Chains in Ethiopia

When: May 5-6, 2026 08:30 AM Nairobi /Addis Ababa

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/N6q3Tb0bSjOG3E8yN65iXw

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Contact

For more information, please send an e-mail to: mailto:T.Endalamaw@cifor-icraf.org