The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) financed the second Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management Project (CHARMP2), in areas where poverty is most severe among indigenous peoples in the highlands of the Cordillera Region in northern Philippines. The aim is to reduce poverty and improve the livelihoods of indigenous peoples living in farming communities in the mountainous project area. The indigenous peoples consist of many tribes whose main economic activity is agriculture. The project demonstrated how development can be supported and sustained without adversely affecting the cultural values and practices of the Indigenous communities through community-driven innovations in the area of watershed management, forest conservation and promotion of agroforestry.

In this Good Practice Note, Marie-Aude Even and Mary Ann Botengan reflect on the lessons learnt from the successful implementation of the community-driven innovations in Forested Uplands in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR). The authors highlight the importance of influencing the enabling environment, the need to forge partnerships, the intensive efforts in capacity development and the community-driven process used for engaging a wide range of stakeholders to achieve sustainable and scalable impacts.