Generation Restoration Roundtable
February 2025
On February 24th, 2025, Generation Restoration e.V. hosted an online roundtable with 20 attendees from diverse organizations around a key question:
«How can we strengthen local seed systems and scale regenerative solutions
in refugee camps?»
Generation Restoration e.V. aims to actively serve as a bridge builder, connecting and supporting the inspiring initiatives that exist within marginalized groups, including both refugees and host communities. Harnessing the experience of grassroots actors, combining common approaches or objectives, framing those for standard-setting, and – ultimately – approaching international organizations for policy definitions are at the forefront of Generation Restoration e.V’s efforts. The Roundtable on February 24, 2025, brought together practitioners, researchers, and community leaders to explore two critical questions:
🔹 How can refugee communities strengthen local seed systems for long-term food security?
🔹 How can we measure and scale the impact of regenerative initiatives effectively?
Key Findings
Based on the pre-filled working documents and the subsequent discussions during the online roundtable, the following key findings were identified:
🌱 Seed Production & Conservation
1. Local seed production is essential to reduce reliance on external aid.
2. Indigenous seeds are more resilient to local climate conditions than hybrid alternatives.
3. Investment in seed banks and training programs ensures long-term sustainability.
📊 Impact Assessment & Scaling
1. Impact measurement must be long-term and integrated into project planning.
2. Scaling requires local adaptation—universal metrics don’t always apply.
3. Community-led data collection builds trust and improves accuracy.
Video recording of the Generation Restoration roundtable on 24 February 2025.
Main Challenges & Solutions
The roundtable discussions also highlighted key challenges and potential solutions to enhance local seed systems and refine impact assessment in refugee camps.
🌱 Seed Production & Conservation
Challenges
- Dependence on hybrid seeds and external suppliers
Many refugee communities rely on imported or hybrid seeds, which are often unsuitable for local conditions and increase long-term dependency. - Loss of indigenous seed varieties
Uganda has lost nearly 40% of its traditional seeds, endangering biodiversity and food sovereignty. - Climate-related challenges
Droughts, floods, and changing conditions increase pests and plant diseases, reducing seed viability. - Lack of storage & preservation infrastructure
Without proper seed banks or cooperative efforts, local farmers struggle to store, preserve, and distribute quality seeds. - Limited training & knowledge
Farmers require better education on seed saving, organic farming, and agroecology. - No clear stakeholder authority
Farmers require clear understanding of who the relevant stakeholders are.
Solutions
- Farmer Cooperatives
Organizing farmers into networks for knowledge exchange and collective seed preservation. - Policy Advocacy
Engaging with governments and NGOs to protect farmer seed rights and promote traditional seed saving. - Training Programs
Providing hands-on education on sustainable farming and seed conservation techniques. - Pilot-Cooperations
Farmers see the need of developing pilot-cooperations that form MoUs (Memorandums of Understanding) and can be scaled subsequently. - Strengthening Community-Based Organizations (CBOs)
Setting clear CBOs with well-defined terms and boundaries is a foreseen need for a structural approach.
📊 Impact Assessment & Scaling
Challenges
- Lack of standardized impact metrics
Many projects focus only on short-term outcomes, making long-term success difficult to evaluate. - Data collection challenges
Limited access to technology, inconsistent baseline data, and low literacy levels hinder effective tracking. - Short funding cycles
Many projects receive funding for only 1–3 years, which is insufficient for regenerative processes that require long-term commitment. - Capacity gaps in community organization
Local initiatives often lack structured frameworks and expertise to conduct impact assessments.
Solutions
- Developing localized impact metrics
Establishing community-specific assessment frameworks rather than relying on generic global models. - Strengthening partnership
Collaborating with universities, NGOs, and policymakers to refine data collection and improve evaluation methods. - Investing in digital tracking tools
Implementing simple community-led data collection systems to measure impact effectively. - Long-term funding strategies
Advocating for multi-year financial support to allow regenerative projects to mature before evaluation. - Scaling Cooperative Models
Farmers highlight the need for small-scale collaborations that can grow through structured agreements. - Defining Community-Based Organizations
Establishing clear roles and frameworks for CBOs is key to long-term impact and efficiency.
The diverse perspectives shared in the roundtable provided valuable insights into strengthening regenerative solutions in refugee settlements. The discussions highlighted the willingness of Ugandan organizations to drive change, while emphasizing that collaboration, knowledge exchange, and strategic coordination are key to maximizing impact.
Network:
Participating organizations & common goals
Generation Restoration (e.V.)
UNIDOS Social Innovation Center
Turning refugees into change makers – that is the goal of the Unidos Social Innovation Centre. In the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in South West Uganda the refugee-led organisation aims at empowering young refugees with entrepreneurial skills.
“Our vision is to completely transform our refugee camp into a regenerative community, where everyone will become self-sufficient. We firmly believe that through developing strong entrepreneurial skills, we will be able to co-create, build resiliency and turn the hard and often painful situations that adversely impacted us in our home countries, into stories of success”, says founder Paulinho. Through the application of permaculture these determined refugees do not only regenerate soil and ecological environment but also their own lives and the community.
Contact Person:
Paulinho Muzaliwa, founder and director of UNIDOS
More infos on UNIDOS.
Nature and Creativity for the Future Generation (NCFG)
Indigenous NGO is working with farmer communities with less resources in Uganda. We are a member of Green light future Union which is a consortium focusing on agroecology. NCFG promotes agroecology, seed regeneration, use of available resources, environmental conservation methods, and safe water in communities.
We have a demonstration farm to showcase what we preach. Agriculture students use it as a practicing classroom. Roundtable discussion on refugees and restoration is important for us to share our experiences, expertise, challenges, and solutions as we aim at environment restoration.
Contact Person:
Francis
Partners Empowering Agro-ecology and Community Education (PEACE)
We are a community-based organisation (CBO) found in Buikwe District, village Bukaya. Majorly with a focus in Agro-ecology which involves environmental conservation, recreation through raising nurseries and tree planting and empowering local smallholder farmers.
Vision: To promote Innovativeness and Climate Action.
Mission: To promote tree planting to smallholder farmers through raising our own nursery beds and by giving out free seedlings to farmers, Rotary Clubs, schools, and the government.
Contact Person:
Peter Kibuuka, Rotarian, Director PEACE
Eco Mamas Uganda
Eco Mamas Uganda: Our mission is to enhance the quality of living for youth, women and families in poor rural areas through education involving environmental sustainability, permaculture, holistic nutrition, herbal medicine, yoga and healthy food preparation.
We are developing a community resource and learning center. We are currently working on the first phase of the construction of the house based on a permaculture concept that will accommodate students, teachers and other guests. We wish to connect with organizations and individuals who are willing to share knowledge or contribute financially in the construction of the house that will help facilitate, trainings and accommodation.
Contact Person:
Adam Suleman, Project Coordinator Eco Mamas Wakalenge Ecovillage
Your Project is Missing?
If you want to share your work with the roundtable network, please send us your organization or project description to vorstand@gen-r.de and we will add it to this online document here.
Join the movement
Coordinating these efforts is the motivation and reasoning behind the establishment of Generation Restoration e.V.
Important Links to follow-up:
- Save the Date: Online Roundtable on 2 May 2025, 9am EAT (Registration here)
- Join WhatsApp Group of the Roundtable
- Join Linkedin Group of Generation Restoration
- Share your projects with us (send them to vorstand@gen-r.de)
- Subscribe for news at www.GenR.world
- Distribute the information among your personal and professional network