Restoring Coastal and Marine Ecosystems

What is the environmental situation in Aruba, especially concerning mangroves and coral reefs?

Natasha Silva: Aruba is a small, 180 kilometer-square, Dutch Caribbean island. Our livelihoods are tied to the health of our coastal ecosystems, including the mangroves and coral reefs. These ecosystems support incredible biodiversity. Mangroves protect the coast and act as nurseries for birds, fish, insects, and more. They also provide natural protection against sea-level rise. Coral reefs are crucial for fisheries, as many species depend on them at various life stages.

The island’s high population density puts significant pressure on our ecosystems. Local pollution harms coral, while climate change and increasingly intense storms cause physical damage. We now experience coral bleaching every year, along with die-offs from stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD). The reefs are breaking down, dying, and collapsing into rubble. Mangroves face challenges such as sedimentation from soil erosion, which raise salinity levels and dry them out. We began active management in 2020 and have been monitoring their health ever since.

What specific actions were implemented through the Turning the Tide project?

René Henkens: In Aruba, the seabed is often covered in coral rubble–loose stone fragments that don’t provide a stable foundation for coral to regrow. For this pilot project, we installed two types of small artificial reef structures–simple concrete blocks and coated iron reef spiders. Both types were placed, often simply by hand, at three sites along the southern coast. As soon as they were installed, fish began using them, providing a clear sign that nature is eager to rebound. To strengthen local capacity, we trained Aruban teams in the restoration techniques. In total more than 150 volunteers participated in these activities–an impressive figure!

We also expanded the coral nursery. At first, high water temperatures delayed transplantation. But by February 2024, conditions improved just enough for us to proceed. We collected coral fragments, attached them to the artificial structures, and began monitoring their growth. On the mangrove side, we focused on the excavation of sediment from the silted mangrove channels, with the aim to restore hydrological flows to areas where it had stagnated or dried up. One interesting challenge we are currently exploring is the question of what to do with the large volumes of dredged sediments. Is it feasible to use it for agriculture, construction, or other applications, or are we limited to disposing of it in the local landfill?

How can the project’s continuity be ensured?

Natasha Silva: What started as a pilot project has evolved into something much bigger, especially thanks to strong partnerships with the ScubbleBubbles Foundation, the University of Aruba, and Wageningen University. The collaboration with Wageningen University was invaluable; they brought specific expertise not yet developed on our island and helped strengthen our local capacity. It wouldn’t have been possible on our own.

Ensuring long-term sustainability means emphasizing education and community involvement. We produced Aruba’s first local nature documentary on ecological restoration, highlighting this project. It positively transformed how people perceive their own environment and gave them a better understanding of the complexities of nature conservation. Through talks, events, and public screenings, we have been raising awareness, and will continue to do so long after this project has been completed. What began as a story of despair became a story of hope and local pride.

René Henkens: The emotional power of the film is essential: science alone rarely moves people, but showing the beauty of nature of what is at stake does. We have also partnered with the University of Aruba to involve trained students in long-term monitoring: tracking fish, coral health, and water temperatures. It is a transfer of knowledge, but also of responsibility. I am proud of the collective energy from volunteers, students, and experts alike. We started small, but achieved a lot. This project shows that restoration is possible, even in heavily degraded ecosystems. However, since the future is uncertain, it is essential to continue ecological monitoring in order to adapt to emerging challenges, but also to focus on tackling anthropogenic threats and drivers.

Strengthening maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region

How does the Philippine National Maritime Center oversee maritime security operations?

It plays a pivotal role in monitoring security threats and safeguarding Philippine waters. The center collects, processes, and shares maritime intelligence—particularly with law enforcement agencies—to ensure effective surveillance and coordinate operations with key stakeholders. Its missions include tackling piracy, illegal fishing, and environmental threats, such as coral reef destruction.

What impact does the CRIMARIO II project have?

CRIMARIO II is a critical driver in strengthening maritime security in the Philippines. It bolsters capacities through tools such as the Indo-Pacific Regional Information Sharing (IORIS) platform, which aims to facilitate information exchange, improve inter-agency coordination, and protect the environment. For example, in summer 2024, when the oil tanker MT Terra Nova sank off the coast of Limay in Bataan province, spilling 1.5 million liters of fuel oil, we coordinated a response—thanks in part to IORIS—that mobilized the Philippine Coast Guard and various other agencies. As a result, more than 97% of the spilled oil was recovered. CRIMARIO II also delivers training programs to strengthen analytical capabilities for assessing and responding to maritime threats.

What are the priorities for interregional cooperation in the area?

We aim to continue reinforcing maritime security and deepening partnerships across the Indo-Pacific. Ongoing engagement with regional and international stakeholders—such as ASEAN, the United Nations, and others—is essential to strengthening our national legal framework. We are also developing capacity-building programs for regional partners such as Vietnam and Papua New Guinea. These efforts are made possible through support from the European Union, which, via CRIMARIO II, enables us to respond to present and future challenges while fostering robust and mutually beneficial regional cooperation.

Promoting the economic empowerment of Ivorian women

What role does the Confédération Générale des Entreprises de Côte d’Ivoire (CGECI) play in the Ivorian private sector?

The CGECI represents nearly 80% of the private sector and brings together professional groups, business associations, and companies from all sectors of activity (industry, services, agriculture, and trade), accounting for nearly 22,000 billion CFA francs and more than 400,000 jobs. We therefore play a key role in representing Ivorian businesses, advocating for their interests to improve their competitiveness and foster their growth. The Confederation is also a leading partner in discussions with trade union representatives and plays a major role in social dialogue. We also engage in advocacy to promote public-private dialogue, in order to strengthen the interaction between these sectors and create a more business-friendly environment.

What has the Investment Climate Reform (ICR) Facility, which works to improve the business climate, enabled the Confederation to achieve?

Within the CGECI, specifically in the Commission for the Promotion of National Entrepreneurship, we are working to remove barriers to women’s entrepreneurship. In Côte d’Ivoire, women are more present in the services sector and the informal trade sector. They rarely venture into activities perceived as large-scale, such as those related to the industrial sector. Thanks to Expertise France, we were able to participate in a training session on business environment reform for women’s economic empowerment, held in Abidjan in January 2025.

Returning to the ICR Facility: it also enables us to conduct a study to support these observations. This will give us a detailed overview of women’s presence in the industrial sector in Côte d’Ivoire, as well as the specific challenges they face. A focus will be placed on the agro-industry sector, where women are mainly involved at the beginning of the value chain (agricultural production and small-scale processing). The study will also include an analysis of good practices identified in other countries and their potential for replication in the Ivorian context.

What will this study help to achieve?

The study will highlight the barriers women face, along with the support and regulatory needs required to ensure better representation of women in the industrial sector. The Confederation will then be able to advocate to public authorities for the removal of potential regulatory obstacles, the inclusion of women in Côte d’Ivoire’s industrialization strategy, and the support—if needed—of reforms to create a more enabling environment for women entrepreneurs, particularly in industry.

We shared this experience during the ICR4WEE conference organized in June 2024 in Rwanda by Expertise France. We were part of the panel on integrating women into industrial policies. These initiatives reflect our commitment to gender issues and the economic empowerment of Ivorian women.

Reforming Justice in Times of War

What issues is the Pravo-Justice project addressing?

Pravo-Justice helps the Ukrainian judiciary face challenges stemming from both long-term reform efforts and the ongoing war. Since the start of judicial reforms in 2010, the system has undergone major transformations, but the Russian aggression has introduced new and urgent needs—particularly the need to maintain access to justice under martial law.

What are the project’s positive outcomes?

The project has led to the creation of Regional Justice Reform Councils (RJRCs), bringing together legal professionals, academics and civil society organizations. These councils foster dialogue between central authorities and regional actors, while monitoring reform implementation in the field. Their work involves collecting and analyzing data to evaluate reform effectiveness and identify areas for improvement—thus ensuring that local needs are better reflected in legislative changes. The NGO Interregional Expertise Center PRO Justice was created out of this dynamic to support judicial reforms nationwide.

How can digitalization improve the quality of court decisions?

In our analytical report on remote hearings, which I co-authored, we highlight the benefits of e-justice in a context of large-scale displacement. Digital tools give citizens easier access to legal information, enable them to interact with the justice system, and uphold their right to a fair trial—regardless of where they are. Transparency is enhanced, and corruption risks are reduced, particularly thanks to automated case assignments.

What challenges still need to be addressed?

One of the main challenges is the acute staffing shortage: judges are overburdened, and there is a lack of clerks, assistants, and other staff. The project’s Model Courts Initiative seeks to address this by modernizing court infrastructure—for example, through relaxation areas or child-friendly spaces. Increasing the salaries of staff, which have remained unchanged since 2021, and protecting them from external pressure are also essential to guarantee the independence of judicial decisions.

Deploying French Expertise Internationally

Can you tell us about your background?

I have been working on food security and nutrition issues for 20 years. After completing my studies as an agricultural engineer, I began my career in the humanitarian sector with the NGO Action Against Hunger and the Groupe URD, a French think tank specializing in humanitarian action. I then joined the Nutrition Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, where I contributed to the development of tools to integrate nutrition-sensitive approaches into policies and programs. I later moved to the World Food Programme (WFP), where I worked on nutrition in school feeding programs. In 2019, I applied for a position as an International Technical Expert (ITE) that was being created within the Programme’s Nutrition Division. This role, at the intersection of my previous experiences, allowed me to build bridges and strengthen connections between the French government, public authorities, and international organizations on issues related to food security and nutrition.

As a Programme Advisor at WFP, what is your mission?

Initially, my role focused on integrated resilience programs, particularly in the Sahel – a region with very high rates of acute malnutrition. My objective was to strengthen the capacity of communities to cope with crises, especially those related to nutrition. Over nearly five years within the Nutrition Division, my mission has evolved. Today, I focus more on integrating nutrition into climate change adaptation programs and anticipatory action for climate shocks, in order to prevent and mitigate their impact on vulnerable populations. I was also involved in the preparation of the quadrennial Nutrition for Growth summit, hosted by France in March 2025, to advance the global fight against malnutrition.

What are the main challenges in anticipating and reducing the impact of shocks and crises on diets and nutrition?

In the face of conflict, economic crises, and increasingly frequent and severe climate shocks, it is essential to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable populations to create an environment conducive to preventing malnutrition and avoiding the transformation of crises into food and nutrition disasters. Malnutrition is a multisectoral challenge that affects food systems, education, health, social protection, access to water and sanitation, among others. Today, while funding is decreasing, needs remain enormous. Building resilience is a long-term challenge that requires sustainable investments to address the root causes of crises, to prevent them—or at the very least—limit their impact, rather than simply addressing their symptoms.

On the necessity to strengthen environmental justice

What is environmental justice?

Environmental justice can be understood as the processing by justice systems of environmental litigation. It applies to a vast set of issues, such as the fight against climate change, waste trafficking, pesticide use, or the management of dwindling resources, such as water…

According to the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and Columbia University’s Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law, the total number of climate-related cases has more than doubled since 2017. The Sabin Centre provides an inventory of referrals for climate cases: 676 cases against national or local governments in 2022, and 241 against corporations or persons, outside the United States. Environment-related litigation, including climate, diversity and pollution cases, can be estimated at 1 to 3 % of the total number of cases processed by legal systems. But this low percentage doesn’t represent the complexity facing these cases: they require specific approaches. In addition to legal issues, the state of scientific knowledge at any given moment represents a challenge. For example, our knowledge of pesticides has considerably evolved in the past 10 to 15 years.

In this context, I think it would be interesting to talk about “justice for nature” since these issues are all interconnected. The climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity, the development of various types of pollution are systemic and jeopardize every living thing. According to EU’s climate regulation, climate change poses an existential threat. For some scientists, humans’ stress on the environment ushered in a new era: the Anthropocene.

What is the place of environmental justice in international cooperation projects?

Environmental justice is increasingly important, especially because citizens place strong expectations upon legal systems’ ability to process conflicts resulting from environmental public policies. Decisions stemming from these policies, at different levels, are, in effect, not always equitable. Their enforcement often generates conflicts. For example, they can impact populations, exposed to pesticides or subjected to urban pollution, or corporations having to manage waste, forever chemicals, or water pollution…

With this approach, legal processes must be globally overhauled, and to do that, magistrates must receive legal training in new areas, such as the innovating process of conducting preliminary consultation phases for projects that impact the surrounding environment. It is essential to grasp new concepts, such as the notions of reversibility or monitored trajectory control, and the upheaval of standard hierarchy resulting from them (permeation of domestic and international law, place given to soft law tools). The definition of the common good must serve as a compass for judges. Justice systems’ rulings will also have multiple implications that must be taken into account. To facilitate this, it is crucial to develop a cross-national discussion among judges, and this will be achieved through international cooperation. The handling of these cases needs to meet citizens’ expectations from their justice systems.

What are the stakes for the countries in the Balkan region?

From an environmental standpoint, multiple issues face the West Balkan region. In the winter, cities in this area are among the most polluted in the world, partially because of an ageing automobile fleet and an economy that hasn’t been decarbonised yet. Coal power plant emissions cause thousands of deaths. In addition to this type of pollution, waste management is also an issue. Collection and processing are dysfunctional, and insufficient. Degraded situations threaten populations’ environments and health. Although these countries are looking to join the European Union, wastewater treatment facilities are obsolete and don’t match European standards. Cases were brought to the courts in several countries against over a hundred companies. For citizens and NGOs, justice is becoming a way to mitigate authorities’ failures and inaction.

Water, access to it and its distribution remain challenges in the region. Yet, because of increasing energy needs, multiple hydraulic infrastructures were built without any of the appropriate controls. The pressure exerted by tourism also generates hydric stress. Questions regarding water use, equal access to the resource and its price are the grounds of many legal proceedings.

What kind of actions does Expertise France conduct on this issue?

The core of our actions lies in the collective designing of legal strategies aimed at protecting the environment. We must build and strengthen the capacities of legal systems in this area. To do that, several types of action can be taken.

We need to assess beforehand, together with legal actors, potential grounds for litigation. It is vital to know contexts, weaknesses and flaws, be they of a legislative nature or within legal organizations, so that we can identify priorities and possible levers. Then these levers must be measured, quantitatively and qualitatively, to finally design effective action plans, capable of addressing citizens’ problems and demands. To design legal protection strategies for the environment, the legal community must be open to sharing knowledge with all stakeholders: NGOs, citizens, researchers… They represent as many areas of expertise necessary for legal systems to handle the upsurge of new cases, to identify needs, and even to develop anticipation methods in case of a collective environmental accident for example.

This requires a significant effort in terms of education. Cooperation can be deployed via methodological guidelines, training design, and support for legal strategy planning. This goes hand in hand with the introduction of means to evaluate and analyse performance and results.

This issue is a democratic one, it rests on the legitimacy of justice systems. It is an opportunity for them: the possibility to strengthen expectations in ethics, independence, and impartiality.

Could you describe characteristic projects?

Expectations are high around the implementation of the Climate Environmental Justice Convergence in the Western Balkans project, supported by Expertise France and AFD. It aims to improve access to justice and make citizen involvement in environmental justice more efficient, ultimately promoting the convergence towards European standards, especially in Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro.

In Albania, the first steps of the initiative are in progress. The collaboration with the Albanian High Inspector of Justice could lead to a thematic effort dedicated to assessing the connections between justice and environmental issues, in the context of the current approach between the EU4justice program, the Council of Europe’s CEPEJ and Expertise France.

In Central and Latin America, the focus is on the training of judges and prosecutors. Their capacities must be strengthened in contexts of environmental crime and attacks on biodiversity overlapping with the fight against corruption and organized crime.

Could you talk about the three-pronged approach, on which relies Expertise France, aimed at supporting the implementation of effective environmental protection?

The concepts that make up this three-pronged approach are: “prevent, sanction, repair”, an interdependent set constituting an integrated approach. It is the foundation of environmental legal protection and has been recognized in international spaces, at France’s initiative. It echoes the “avoid, reduce, compensate” practice that influences the design of environmental public policy.

First, prevent. It implies means for a legal system to act before litigation, such as mediation. It is essential that justice be accessible and information available to allow citizens to find out about projects that could potentially harm the environment, so they can, if necessary, start the appropriate procedures. This requires the deployment of points of access to environmental justice. Another aspect is the creation of emergency procedures to stop ecological damage.

Then, sanction. Sanctions come in after damage has occurred. It is necessary to establish penal, administrative or civil responsibility. Sanctions must be designed with a preventive dimension in mind, to limit reoccurrence. For fair, efficient and acceptable sanctions, it is essential to have quality inquiries and investigations, or a robust expertise to foster impartial and transparent debates.

And finally, repair. After destruction or damage occurs, things must be restored to their former state. This can mean financial compensation, rebuilding the damaged environments or repairing a specific prejudice. But other forms are possible, such as reparations in kind.

To conclude, I would say that the involvement of Expertise France in these areas is essential. To strengthen the rule of law, its legitimacy, and legal and judicial systems, key actors must tackle these issues, without any hesitation.

Interview in May 2024.

Fighting against human trafficking in the Gulf of Guinea

What is your approach to human trafficking?

In the Gulf of Guinea, human trafficking is circular and crosses borders: these countries are territories of origin, transit, and destination for trafficking victims. As part of a project to support the fight against human trafficking in the Gulf of Guinea (ALTP), Expertise France is working with authorities and civil society in six countries in the region.

What does Expertise France contribute to this project?

The productive partnership between the ministry and Expertise France has led to specific actions: renovation of the headquarters of the Executive Secretariat of the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking, reinforcement of the technical secretariat’s capacities, and the acquisition of equipment needed to launch a new database. Expertise France has also helped us take more structural actions, such as setting up seven regional units to fight against trafficking, developing a national referral system and victim support procedures, and capacity building on this topic for stakeholders in the penal system.

What challenges must be overcome to fight more effectively against human trafficking in the coming years?

We must keep strengthening the legal framework, finalize and launch the database, and expand awareness-raising campaigns by including survivors. To eradicate the trafficking pattern in the Gulf of Guinea, we need a holistic approach based on improved cooperation between countries and stakeholders. Our work on the ground will soon be strengthened by the creation of new regional units, a victim services center, and a dedicated hotline.

Interview conducted in May 2024.

Women’s rights in Latin America and the Caribbean

Why is care on the women’s rights agenda in the region?

A. M. M. For several years now, women have expressed to us their need to put their economic rights at the centre of our priorities so they can obtain social and economic recognition for the value of their work. This requires a pivotal starting point: the reconceptualization of the very notion of work to integrate the fact that domestic tasks are work, non-paid work, but work nonetheless.

Furthermore, care is an activity that dates back millennia, performed by women, to support families and whole countries’ economies. It is crucial to think of care through the lens of a profound transformation of our society’s organization, in which we are only limited to the private sphere, to move towards the sharing of responsibilities. These elements are part of a larger concept that is also at the core of our regional agenda: women’s economic rights. Our objective is to encourage women to perform decent paid work, which will allow them to continue progressing towards economic autonomy, an essential condition for a life free of violence.

L. V. With time, the responsibilities which were traditionally assigned to women became an obstacle to their self-fulfilment. In this sense, care constitutes an obstacle to women joining the workforce, obtaining economic autonomy and living free of violence. But countries don’t always care about this reality, so a part of our agenda is dedicated to what needs to be done to meet these challenges. Care and the fight against gendered violence don’t affect women exclusively, there are social issues in their own right, which affect countries as a whole and require cooperation between continents. I think there needs to be a shared vision today about the way care responsibilities should be approached while involving actors at the national and international levels.

How do France and the EU help to put women’s rights on the regional agenda?

L. V. SDGs, which we must meet by 2030, force us to collaborate as countries so we can progress on our path to reach them at a global scale. One country alone can’t do it, we must work together with the European Union. Some programs, such as the EU-funded and Expertise France-managed EUROsociAL, are essential. Its goal is to support the reduction of inequalities between men and women, by helping to implement equality policies. This kind of initiative allows us to keep moving forward so that well-being can be placed at the centre of public policies. Countries can’t face this reality alone, and while we need Latin-American cooperation, we also need the support of the EU.

A. M. M.Highlighting intersectionality in our regional agenda is important. It allows us to understand how access to economic rights varies for rural women, indigenous women and women of African heritage. We also foreground the issue of violence against women. But we cannot resolve these problems in isolation. By facilitating synergies, alliances and cooperation opportunities, we can move forward on these issues. We also need specific multilateral tools to help us improve. We think that real changes, at the national and local levels, are ushered by the international and multilateral agreements that we promote.

Interview conducted in May 2024.

The World Agriculture Watch at the service of farming

What are the challenges facing farmers around the world?

Agriculture is a weak spot in food systems, as it remains neglected by public policies and by consumers. Promises of great modernization programs aiming at decreasing food insecurity and undernutrition in developing countries are not being fulfilled.

Neither are there any real international regulatory systems: the UN offers a shared framework for discussions and negotiations, but it doesn’t have the authority to make decisions.

Furthermore, the phenomenon of land grabbing persists. Some countries negotiate rights of use outside of their domestic territories with countries of the Global South. This is the case with China and Gulf countries. When it comes to agriculture, preserving land ownership is essential, but there is a lack of restrictive tools to ban this type of agreement between governments and private economic actors. Thus, foreign production models are imposed at the expense of traditional systems of farming and natural resource management.

In the long run, farmers must face climate disruptions. While the capacities for action are limited, the effects can be mitigated by changing practices, and this is what is at stake with agroecology. In addition to these challenges, difficulties arise when trying to reach a consensus on the urgent need to change the intensive farming model. For decades, this model has been depleting water resources, destroying soils and durably affecting biodiversity.

How does the World Agriculture Watch aim to address these challenges?

WAW is an initiative spearheaded by France since 2011 and housed by the UN’s FAO, in partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD).

WAW’s mission is to report on the diversity of farming operations throughout the world to better adapt public policies and investment strategies, and meet the challenges mentioned above. WAW relies on the production, use and sharing of data, in collaboration with farmers’ and producers’ organizations.

We primarily focus on family farming, because it remains ubiquitous and essential. Most of the global food production comes from it: in 500 million farms – 90% of the total –, one family owns the capital and works the operation. WAW’s activities fit the United Nation’s Decade of Family Farming 2019-2028, which aims to protect these farms and develop the kind of agriculture they practice.

Field surveys are the most effective way to access information, even if the data are sometimes not accessible or of variable quality. For example, for Africa, only one in five countries had recent figures in 2021.

We will soon publish WAW’s operational guidelines: not only will this technical tool offer a methodological framework for actors who need it, but we also want to use it as a communication medium to mobilise decision-makers and investors, and to develop other projects.

What is the interest for local actors?

WAW is a tool that can adapt to the needs of individual countries, thanks to its increased knowledge of farming operations’ diversity. It can facilitate the development of more effective strategies. Representative organizations can also benefit from a better understanding of their members and thereby strengthen their advocacy.

At a more macro level, WAW manages other more ambitious programs, such as the “50 by 2030” project, in partnership with the World Bank and IFAD. It aims to enable the 50 least advanced countries to develop information systems on their agriculture so that they can report on their commitments regarding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for the decade.

The takeaway is that agriculture is diverse and multifaceted: it is faced with multiple challenges, and to support the desired food system transformations towards more sustainability and resilience, farming policies must be adapted by considering farm diversity. Increasing knowledge quality is an important issue for a development institution. As a WAW coordinator, my main role is to develop partnerships and to communicate about our tool, to generate interest among other actors, technical and financial mostly, who could potentially support it.

Interview conducted in May 2024.