USAID’s Assistant Administrator Mona Yacoubian visits Lebanon and attends a roundtable on community reforestation best practices with the Lebanon Reforestation Initiative
Ten diverse communities around Lebanon gathered around the roundtable and discussed their experiences and achievements in leading and implementing successful reforestation projects, as well as the role played by the municipality, civil society, women and youth groups to achieve the desired goals and ensure sustainability of the efforts.
The discussion that was held in the presence of Assistant Administrator Yacoubian, USAID’s Mission Director Bryan and other USAID representatives, also tackled opportunities to upscale prior experiences and accomplishments to encourage social cohesion between different sectarian groups as well as the support needed to build community resilience through reforestation.
The event constituted also a great opportunity for municipalities to celebrate “the half a million tree planted” milestone, discuss and highlight the importance of reforestation and natural resources management activities to encourage inter-community linkages and dialogue.
Following the roundtable discussion, Assistant Administrator Yacoubian and USAID’s representatives visited the 70 hectare site in Kfardebian where they planted cedar seedlings with LRI team and the local community planting force.
