The Building Biocarbon and Rural Development in West Africa Programme aims to demonstrate the multiple developmental and environmental wins that result from a high value biocarbon approach to climate change and variability in large landscapes principally in Mali, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The Programme will also build local institutions and capacity to be able to sustain the benefits in the sites and will establish linkages with related initiatives to jointly build national and regional capacity to scale up the approaches into other programmes and projects. The themes of the Programme are very closely linked to Finlandâ??s international development priorities and are closely aligned with the priorities expressed in its national poverty reduction and climate change a daptation strategies. Furthermore, the Programme aims to generate critical information that can fill the global knowledge gaps on how to better link climate change mitigation and adaptation thrusts and how to make these actions work effectively to enhance the livelihoods of rural communities.