It is necessary to develop a strong, concise and attractive pitch pack, which is professional and clearly shows the project’s importance and budget. It is extremely important to make a clear pitch on how, by funding the project, the organisation or company will benefit. For example, for X amount of money the funder logo will be used on project t-shirts and the funder will be mentioned in all media coverage.  The pitch pack should include the project logo, and use visual aids to bring the point across. In this case we used images of Aldabra, it’s wildlife and the impact of the plastic pollution. Since we were distributing these packs in the UK and Seychelles it was vital to create each pack with the local context in mind, whether it was currency conversions or the use of particular quotes from recognisable figures. Alongside the pitch pack we created a campaign video which introduces the problem and the solution using strong imagery and a voiceover. With these steps completed, we could then plan the project launch. The aim of the launch was to garner a maximum amount of media coverage and engage as many individuals and companies as possible via a face-to-face event. We therefore organised events both in UK and in Seychelles, in which potential donors and supporters were invited.

A series of trainings for national decision makers was conducted covering topics such as FLR terms & definitions, strategies addressing drivers of degradation (e.g. wood energy), as well as financing options. Capacity building was conducted continuously and had a ‘training on the job’ character; it was aligned with concrete aspects such as FLR studies (ROAM study, financing options), the national FLR strategy and identification of FLR priority landscapes. ~40 relevant actors (universities, civil society, private sector) were able to provide their input in the form of questionnaires on how to define priority areas for FLR, which was a cornerstone of capacity building.

The training was complemented by the participation of national representatives at various FLR & AFR100 regional and international conferences; this enabled further knowledge exchange at global level to improve national strategies.

At present, capacity building focuses at the regional level; a training module has been developed and tested in Boeny region in April 2018 and will be adapted for application in Diana region. Additional trainings will be held for the Ministry of Spatial Planning, covering land governance.

A multidisciplinary national FLR committee was set up as an advisory board, facilitating intersectoral & interministerial coordination to moving from the FLR pledge to concrete policies and action. It consists of 15 persons including the ministries of environment, agriculture, energy and water, spatial planning and representatives from civil society and the private sector.

It covers five working groups dealing with i) forest management, ii) water, iii) agriculture, vi) financing and v) soil management. It validates all key decisions. Members also participate, as resource persons, in technical capacity building activities.

The committee conducted a stakeholder and capacity needs assessment, funding analysis and facilitated various multi-stakeholder dialogues e.g. for the development of the national forest landscape restoration strategy and ensures that the interests of involved stakeholders are considered.

The FLR platform is a multi-stakeholder dialogue forum with more than 50 members, led by the FLR committee, to discuss, propose and validate practical solutions for forest landscape restoration at regional and local level and support the implementation of the FLR strategy and capacity development.

Before beginning to approach potential funders it was necessarily to carefully plan and design the project and anticipate all the information that funders would wish to know. This includes the project aims and outputs, the team involved, the logistical plan and the budget. It is also important to clearly think about how the project will have a lasting legacy beyond the clean-up expedition. This should be developed into a full written project proposal.

Following completion of the project design it is necessary to set-up project media sites, this also required developing a project logo, title and tag line. We also set-up specific project email addresses. The media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & project website) all required initial content and therefore a photo library was compiled and content text established. Before launching the project we also completed team recruitment (12 team volunteers in total) and allocated specific team roles for the duration of the project, for example, social media officer, outreach officer, science officer. With this now in place it was possible to plan a fundraising strategy.

Developed attitude and behavior assessment surveys targeting specific groups (e.g., visitors, local communities, and productive sectors) who visit or reside near MPAs carried out at different times. A web-based “Friends of the SMPA Society” comprised of national and international scientists and members of civil society were put in place. The project developed an information dissemination and communication strategy specific in marine topics, which will inform the general population about MPAs through print, audiovisual (radio, TV, newspapers, and internet), as well as dissemination meetings. The main activities were: a)Dissemination campaigns; b)implementation of the SAMP web page; c)awareness campaigns in educational centers (schools and universities); and d) establishment of a data base of images and videos bilingual (Spanish and English). SAMP promoted in international and national events of scientific nature, such as seminars, congresses, side-event in COP of Biodiversity, among others. Main results: 11% increase over the baseline of behavior and attitudes test scores; 5 new funding proposals leveraged by the “Friends of the SMPA Society"; national recognition at the end of the GEF-Project promoted a participatory roadmap for sustainability of next 5 years reacheness.