This section reviews the ways in which the solution areas are being applied in practice through ILM approaches globally. Case studies and solutions are context-specific, but many examples have replicable strategies and activities that can be implemented across a variety of development projects.
As countries and communities confront the complex challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and rural poverty, integrated landscape management is gaining traction as a unifying approach. It offers a practical, inclusive framework for managing land, water, and natural resources across ecological, administrative, and sectoral boundaries, delivering benefits for people, economies, and ecosystems alike. But designing and implementing these approaches at scale is not straightforward. It requires a shift from isolated, project-based interventions to systems thinking, long-term planning, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and adaptive learning.
Fortunately, a growing number of global experiences are demonstrating what integrated landscape approaches can look like in practice. Around the world, governments, communities, civil society, and the private sector are experimenting with new models of governance, finance, technology, and livelihood generation—some building on long-standing traditions, others catalyzed by recent innovations. These experiences offer valuable insights for other regions and countries working to design and strengthen their own landscape initiatives.
The solution areas of policy, technology, and finance have a growing number of emerging good practices seen through project activities. For example, AI is being infused into development work to assist with improving data sets, summarizing large amounts of knowledge, conducting language translation, and assisting with communication, but this needs to be in a responsible way.
Policy and Regulation Solutions
Policy and regulatory solutions that are a focus of the LLA and the Bank are:
An enabling environment for private sector engagement (e.g., improved land tenure, skills development, fair competitive environment, open data, removing perverse incentives).
Public land policies that combine production with other environmental services (land set aside, mandatory native species coverage, protected areas and buffer zone management, etc.) and improving institutional capacity.
Domestic fiscal policies that support sustainable landscape development (including payments for environmental services), and repurposing rural subsidies.
Technical Solutions
Technical solutions that are a focus of the LLA and the Bank are:
Tools – including AI, remote sending data and other digital solutions – to provide environmental and socio-economic data for improved landscape planning, site selection and investment planning (this includes access to global datasets and knowledge through platforms and tools developed by the LLA).
Improved genetic material, site–species matching, nursery practices (particularly for native species), mechanization, sustainable land and water management practices, etc.
Financing Solutions
Financing solutions that are a focus of the LLA and the Bank are:
The solutions areas discussed above are often interlinked. For example, better land tenure systems need to be based on modern efficient technology and fiscal policies can be used to create an enabling environment for the private sector.
This section provides examples of how the integrated landscape approach can be and has been conducted globally to leverage emerging opportunities and produce social, environmental, and economic benefits to a wide range of stakeholders.
The Case Study Explorer below collates information about how solutions have been applied to the priority landscapes covered in this e-book globally. Users can click on the map to locate relevant case studies and can filter results by solution area, landscape type, and geographic area.
The examples below summarize global examples of the application of solution areas to the landscape types (drylands, forests, coastal areas) included in this e-book. These are the kinds of case studies included in the case study explorer and seek to assist Bank teams, government officials, and other development practitioners in identifying potential solution areas to facilitate integrated landscape management within specific landscape types.
The application of technology in drylands is illustrated through a tool the Bank developed for decision support for investment exploration. This type of tool could be developed by teams in other dryland (or other landscape) areas to identify and guide investment. In this tool, the user can choose the Inspector tool on the top right, zoom into the map and click on any location to explore potential investments with details from the WOCAT SLM database on landcover and other environmental variables such as precipitation and slope.
The UNCDD Land Degradation Neutrality Fund is an example of innovative finance for dryland restoration. This Fund is an impact investment blended finance fund that combines public, private and philanthropic captial to fund land restoration and sustainable land management projects that can achieve land degradation neutrality.
The application of innovative finance in forest areas can be seen in new funds that are being set up, such as the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF). This fund seeks to protect forests that have not been subject to degradation and therefore are not able to quality for funding focused on additionality of forest management.
The application of blue bonds as an innovative finance solution has been applied in coastal areas. One example is the Belize Blue Bond, which through a debt for nature swap allowed Belize to reduce its external debt and increase investment into Ocean conservation over 20 years. The Government of Belize has committed to protect up to 30% of Belize’s ocean and to other conservation outcomes.