The Generation Restoration initiative started in 2021 when co-founder and facilitator Tina Teucher initiated two global roundtables on the visionary question: What if we transformed refugee camps into regenerative communities? What if they could contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals? More than 150 people from over 40 countries joined the conversations to discuss how to multiply and scale existing but small grass root projects and build new standards for a regenerative refugee camp design. The needs detected in these dialogues were scaling, funding, guidance and networking.

VISION: Refugee camps and settlements become places of regeneration and resilience.

WHY: The need to heal people & planet. The need for peace, food and ecosystem services.

HOW: Speed & scale for regenerative solutions in refugee camps.

WHAT: Matching of organisations & finance & networks & projects
General observations:
1. Restoration with refugees has a great potential.
2. Good examples with knowledge & experience already exist.
3. Obstacles hinder them to be widespread yet.
4. Learning from each other can help overcome the constraints.
5. It needs grass root support, new standards and viable approaches for impact investment.

Strategy & Theory of Change:
1. SCALE positive examples: Funding & visibility for grass root projects to multiply
Successful grass root projects with proof of concept now need fast AND long-term oriented funding to assess and multiply their impacts, for example to create permaculture train-the-trainer-programs, build educational centers and train millions of refugees.
2. CHANGE standards: Facilitating dialogues with standard setters (guidelines). Big institutional stakeholders and NGOs are not yet focusing on long-term regenerative solutions on a large scale. In a facilitated participatory process, they can develop common visions and strategies, including learnings and wisdom from existing projects.
3. DEVELOP opportunities: Cultivate business models for impact investment
Impact Investors are just about to discover the potential of combining ecosystem restoration with humanitarian or development aid, resulting in multiple benefits. They need guidance on how to measure positive impact of projects and how to help them become “investable”.