Conservation of the Atlantic Forest through the sustainable management of cocoa agroforestry landscapes To reduce and reverse the trends of degradation and biodiversity loss in Southern Bahia State by strengthening the cabruca cocoa production systems Note: Disbursement data provided is cumulative and covers disbursement made by the project Agency. E.1 Knowledge management and Communication  131. Knowledge management approach and Communication strategy comprises component 4 of this project and are structured under two outputs: 4.1.1. Communication strategy developed and under implementation; 4.2.2. Knowledge management plan developed and implemented, including south-south cooperation activities.  Knowledge Management Plan  132. The Knowledge management plan will be transversal to all three main components of this project and will be implemented in two main approaches: An internal approach, referring to the knowledge generated by the project activities and results; and an external approach, building on the knowledge already developed by local organizations, seeking to improve projects and synergistic actions impacts.  133. In the internal approach, the project team will document, store, analyze and publicize project results and the knowledge generated during activities implementation. In this sense, activities planned in the Knowledge management plan include publication of online and printed documents for publicizing and spreading project results and Knowledge generated and realization of seminars and workshops to share and discuss project findings with main partners and beneficiaries. These events include south-south cooperation activities with other projects supported by GEF targeting cocoa under the FOLUR programme (i.e., Nicaragua and Ivory Coast) and GEF-7 project in Venezuela. The team project will also seek to participate in events organized by partners to share results and findings, positioning the project as an important initiative in innovation and knowledge generation fields. Also, the project will support innovation initiatives in agroforest management and cocoa value chain in partnership with local universities and promote environmental education weeks in schools, highlighting the importance of cabruca and producer's role for biodiversity conservation.  134. In the external approach, the project will work together with local stakeholders to overcome major barriers regarding knowledge management. The region has a rich set of organizations involved with research, development and innovation activities, such as universities, private companies and NGOs, as well as CEPLAC. Despite that, there’s a lack of knowledge integration and diffusion in a way that facilitates decision-making process by public authorities and private actors, supporting the territorial development planning based on actual data and information. The project will support the development of tools and platforms, in partnership with Social Observatory and Scientific and Technological Park to integrate, organize and share in accessible ways relevant data and information with main public and private stakeholders and with the society in general.  135. In Component 1, the knowledge management plan, including internal and external approach will support the decision-making process and regional planning in the scope of the governance system with actual and precise data and information. In component 2, the project will support tools and platforms for knowledge generation and sharing, will promote workshops for discussion and knowledge integration with main stakeholders regarding Biodiversity Conservation, Landscape Planning, Environmental Restoration and Payment for Environmental Services. Will also develop a landscape and biodiversity monitoring systems that will help the design of public policies and strategic actions. Also, the project will support the capacitation and training of young people in actions such as “Biodiversity monitoring System implementation” and “Community environmental agents’’. In component 3, the project will work with partners to build on and improve the knowledge related to agroforestry management practices, training technicians and producers, and improving cabruca management systems. One of the strategies that will be implemented to raise technical knowledge available in the project region will be the “Cocoa School''. It's a hubof knowledge development that will offer continuous training programs to rural technicians and producer’s, that includes exchanges between producers to raise the knowledge related to better management practices.   136. The knowledge management plan will adopt gender sensitive actions, promoting workshops with women leadership to foster and improve women role in knowledge management and diffusion and women role in biodiversity and agrobiodiversity conservation and in cocoa value chain. The project will also adopt strategies to valorise and fully integrate local and traditional knowledge in the decision-making process, guaranteeing its participation in the governance system and other discussion forums implemented by the project. Also, the project will be implementing activities to document and safeguard local and traditional knowledge, in activities such as “Support and valorisation of traditional management practices through GIAHS patrimonialization and cabruca dynamic conservation plan elaboration” and as one of the main functions of the community environmental agents.The following table details the budget and implementation timeline of the KM plan:        Activities   Budget   Timeline       4.1.2.1. Development of a platform for data aggregation and dissemination   $15,000   First Year of the project       4.1.2.2. Holding seminars to exchange experiences between beneficiaries and project partners   $15,000   3 seminars - 1 at final of first project year 1 at final of second project year 1 at final of third projet year       4.1.2.3. Seminar on conservation of the Atlantic Forest with a focus on sustainable cocoa production   $18,000   Last year of the project       4.1.2.4. Participation in regional and national events, fairs and forums   $8,000   4 events supported; 1 at each project year       4.1.2.5. Meeting of female leaders   $10,000   2 meetings supported,  1 at first project year 1 at third project year       4.1.2.6. Producers meeting   $ 10,000   2 meetings supported 1 at second project years 1 at third project year       2.1.2.7. Hackathon – innovative ideas for the cabruca cocoa chain   $6,000   Second project year       2.1.2.8. Advocacy and incidence actions (coordinator for component 4)   $44,000   Throughout the entire project implementation phase       2.1.2.9. Virtual seminars to exchange south-south experience   $3,000   2 seminars supported 1 at second project year 1 at third project year       2.1.2.10. Cross-site Visit For GEF Project in Venezuela   $17,000   At third project year       2.1.2.11. Tradicional population consultation process (to be evaluated during the project period)   $6,000   Throughout the entire project implementation phase       Communication Strategy  137. The communication strategy will focus on sharing and publicizing project results to partners, stakeholders and general society. The objective is to enlarge project visibility, results and new initiatives implemented on the territory, seeking to promote project credibility, transparency and legitimacy. The project communication strategy will work an in and out approach (internal and external communication strategy)  138. The internal communication strategy will be focused on project implementation itself, by fostering communication within the project team and with project main partners. This strategy has the following objectives: To Engage stakeholders and beneficiaries in project activities, updating about activities implementation, facilitating participation and collaboration opportunities; To build a project common narrative, alignment and belonging between partners and beneficiaries; publicizing about project results and advancements. The internal communication strategy will be directed to the project team and main partners. It will contribute directly to the effectiveness of project implementation and reaching its goals. It also contributes to a better communication between project team and main partners, through coherent and homogenous discourses about project strategies and institutional approach, promoting better alignment between organizations involved (executors and partners).  139. The activities that will be carried on the internal communication strategy includes: publication of online and printed materials about project activities, opportunities for collaboration and project results and advancements; realization of forums and workshops between project teams and main partners to enhance the alignment during project implementation; Elaboration of short audiovisual materials to spread project activities among main partners and beneficiaries; Elaboration of project visual identity.  140. The external communication strategy will be focused on publicizing project actions and results to society in general and its contributions and advancements in sustainable development, biodiversity conservation and improvement of smallholders livelihoods agendas. This external communication strategy will also promote strategic communication actions regarding unique characteristics of the cabruca system to society, including its importance for Atlantic Forest Conservation and the Higher quality of its cocoa and the project’s contribution to its maintenance and improvements. Its intention is to raise the project visibility, as well as its results, advancements, and new initiatives implemented and developed on the territory, promoting project credibility, legitimacy and transparency.   141. In this sense, the external communication Strategy has the following objectives: To update and inform project progress and activities and publicize its results, lessons learned and good practices for replication and scaling up; ; Raise awareness about Atlantic Forest and its biodiversity conservation, as well as the importance of cabruca systems; Raise awareness about cabruca cocoa and its unique characteristics, such as higher quality and socioenvironmental values associated. Publicize projects contributions to sustainable development, biodiversity conservation and improvement of smallholders livelihoods;   142. The actions to be implemented in the scope of the communication plan includes: Press releases and social network publications;; Elaboration of online and printed materials; Elaboration of audiovisual materials, such as short videos for social networks, a project video case, a promotional video focusing on marketing and a short documentary about cabruca system; Realization of a award for higher quality chocolate from cabruca agroforestry systems; and frequent encounters with public managers and other relevant stakeholders. The following table details the budget and implementation timeline of the communication strategy:        Activities   Budget   Timeline       4.1.1.1. Project Communication Consultancy   $35,000   Throughout the entire project implementation phase        4.1.1.2. Audiovisual pieces elaboration   $18,000   3 audiovisual pieces elaborated 1 at second project year 1 at third project year 1 at final project year       4.1.1.3. Communication pieces publication (printed and online)   $21,000   Bimonthly, throughout the entire project implementation phase        4.1.1.4. Case studies/lessons learned publications   $16,000   4 publications supported,  2 at third project year 2 at final project year       4.1.1.5. Cocoa Cabruca Quality award   $9,000   At third project year       4.1.1.6. Inception workshop   $5,000   First 3 months of the project implementation phase       4.1.1.7. Final workshop   $5,000   Last 3 months of project implementation phase        E.2 Socio-economic Benefits and Decent Rural Employment  143. The project will directly benefit cocoa producers with a series of activities such as technical assistance, training and capacitation program, access to market, economic valorization of products and byproducts of cabruca systems through incentives to better production and processing practices and labeling and marketing strategies. Through this set of actions, the project seeks to revitalize cabruca systems and the cocoa value chain in the impacted region, contributing to regional sustainable economic development and positioning 141. Bahia State and Brazil as one of the biggest producers of sustainable cocoa in the world. To achieve this the project will support small and medium farmers, seeking to increase technical capacities, yields, product quality and access to better markets, fostering increase in income generation by rural activities in smallholders’ families, improving their livelihoods.  144. As mentioned in the sections above, the cabruca system contributes immensely to biodiversity conservation, climatic regulation, landscape connectivity and promotes ecosystem services such as water and soil protection and renovation in addition to its social, cultural and economic importance to the region, as will be more explored in “Annex B – Baseline Scenario and problem to be addressed” (please refer to the Annex B in the ProDoc word document). Nevertheless, the current state of cabruca economic unviability and producers’ vulnerability is one of the major drivers of productive areas transformation that leads to forest degradation and biodiversity loss. In this sense, strengthening and valorizing farmers’ role in biodiversity conservation by promoting the sustainable cocoa value chain is a key strategy to achieve global benefits linked to Tropical Forests and its biodiversity management and conservation, as well as promotion of ecosystem services. Yet, the revitalization of cocoa culture in the region is fundamental for rural succession and maintenance of families in rural areas, ensuring employment and income generation that attends to families demands and needs and fosters better life quality. The revitalization and valorization of the cocoa value chain promotes employment and decent work for rural people, especially for young people. The project will work closely with small and medium producers guaranteeing good work conditions in all activities related to the project.In this sense the project will contributes to Decent Rural Employment (DRE) in four pillars of DRE supported by FAO, as follows:  Pillar 1 – employment creation and enterprise development: Women and men small-scale producers supported in accessing markets and modern value chains.; agribusiness and marketing micro, small and medium enterprises supported in accessing markets, training, financial services and other productive assets; vocational and educational training programmes on technical and business skills for rural people supported; Capacities of national partners supported to collect and analyze age and disaggregated data on rural labor markets.  Pillar 2 – Social protection: occupational safety and health measures for the rural workforce adopted by promoting safer technology for small scale and commercial agriculture in extension programmes; working conditions improved in rural areas, including effective maternity protection and living wages in agriculture.  Pillar 3 – Standards and rights at work: Socially responsible agricultural production supported, specifically to reduce gender and age based discrimination; Child labour prevention and reduction in rural areas supported by tackling its root causes (poverty, lack of education) and providing livelihood alternatives to poor households; Compliance with national labour legislation promoted in rural areas.  Pillar 4 – Governance and Social Dialogue: Countries supported in strengthening democratic organizations and networks of producers and workers, particularly in the informal rural food economy; Representation of the rural poor in social dialogue and policy dialogue through their organizations supported; Participation of rural poor in local decision-making and governance mechanisms supported; Rural women and youth groups empowered to be involved in these process from the initial steps; Synergies built between organizations, programmes, countries and producer-to-producer learning opportunities created.