Regeneration in Action: Reflections on the 2026 Skoll World Forum
Insights from Oxford on how grassroots women leaders and community-driven solutions are shaping a more resilient future.
From April 21–24 in Oxford, UK, global leaders, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, grassroots organizers, and environmental advocates gathered at the Skoll World Forum to explore one central question: what does it mean to build a regenerative future?
This year’s forum centered on the theme of renewal and regeneration — not simply as environmental restoration, but as a broader framework for collective healing, resilience, and systems change. Across conversations on climate adaptation, economic justice, food security, technology, and gender equity, one message emerged clearly: the solutions to today’s interconnected crises already exist within communities around the world. The challenge is ensuring those solutions are recognized, resourced, and scaled ethically.
Women’s Earth Alliance attended the forum as part of the Project Dandelion delegation, a global campaign advancing women-led environmental and social solutions worldwide. Representing WEA was Africa Program Manager Teresa Muthoni, whose work focuses on community-driven landscape restoration, resilience initiatives, and strategic partnerships across the African continent.
Throughout the week, WEA joined conversations with partners, funders, movement leaders, and practitioners exploring how grassroots leadership can shape more just and regenerative futures. The forum offered an important opportunity to strengthen relationships across sectors and regions while elevating the leadership and solutions emerging from communities across Africa and around the world.
The conversations at Skoll reflected the breadth and creativity of community-rooted solutions emerging around the world. Discussions ranged from beekeeping as an economic enterprise to regenerative agriculture strengthening food security, from training young women in environmental leadership to community-based healthcare networks built by unemployed women doctors serving their own regions through digital resource-sharing.
“When we shared the scale of WEA programs and the number of women we support, people were really impressed,” Teresa shared. What resonated most in these conversations was how women continue supporting one another within their communities, reaching places traditional systems often overlook.
That emphasis on community-rooted solutions became one of the defining themes of the week.
Rooted in Community Leadership
Throughout the forum, WEA connected with organizations across Africa and beyond that are tackling similar environmental and social challenges through deeply localized approaches. Again and again, conversations returned to the same principle: sustainable solutions cannot simply be imported from the outside.
“Solutions shouldn’t come from ‘out there,’” Teresa explained. “They should come from ‘down there’ — from the people on the ground.”
This perspective recognizes that every community holds its own knowledge, priorities, and relationships to place, and therefore environmental solutions must be co-designed alongside the communities they are meant to support. Rather than replicating one-size-fits-all interventions, organizations must invest in local knowledge, lived experience, and culturally grounded innovation.
The forum also created opportunities for new partnerships and cross-regional collaboration. Delegates from Indonesia connected directly with WEA program directors to explore future partnerships and shared learning opportunities. Conversations around pollinators and regenerative agriculture echoed work already underway in Kenya, where WEA supports beekeeping initiatives that both strengthen biodiversity while creating economic opportunity for women.
“Save the bees,” Teresa laughed, “but also create economic benefit.”
The forum reinforced something WEA sees across its programs every day: innovation is not concentrated in one region or sector. It is already happening everywhere.
The Power of the Dandelion
For Teresa, the experience of participating in the Project Dandelion delegation carried symbolic significance as well.
“We are Dandelions for a reason. We are inspired by the resilience of the dandelion. Its roots regenerate soil, every part of the flower can be consumed, and it spreads by blowing in the wind. It has one goal — to seed more dandelions. That is our goal too.”
The metaphor reflected the spirit of the delegation itself: women leaders building connections and momentum far beyond the forum itself. Conversations consistently focused on how organizations could better coordinate restoration projects across the Global South, reduce duplication of efforts, and build complementary partnerships rather than operating in silos.
Instead of repeatedly training the same groups in isolation or building parallel systems, attendees discussed how organizations could combine their strengths, share resources, and amplify collective impact.
We Already Have the Solutions
The environmental movement does not suffer from a lack of ideas. Rather, it suffers from a lack of investment in the people already doing the work.
“We already have the solutions,” she emphasized. “Many of them are being developed in the Global South. We don’t need to spend all our energy inventing new solutions — we need to invest in scaling the ones that already exist.”
That investment includes funding, visibility, infrastructure, long-term partnership, and access to decision-making spaces. Teresa raised an important question during the forum: who has access to global decision-making spaces and whose leadership is represented in these conversations?
“We need more of these organizations in large-scale conversations,” she said. “Their work deserves visibility, support, and resources.”
Conversations also explored how artificial intelligence is shaping environmental and community-based work. Participants discussed how AI is increasingly shaping environmental and community development work, while emphasizing the importance of ensuring these tools remain accessible and community-centered.
For example, some organizations have begun using AI-powered weather forecasting tools to send farmers text alerts about optimal planting times. While these technologies are evolving quickly, attendees agreed much more must be done to ensure they directly benefit women and grassroots communities rather than reinforcing existing inequities.
Equally important was the need to create more pathways for young women’s environmental leadership. Across conversations, delegates emphasized mentorship, intergenerational organizing, and creating pathways for girls and young women to see environmental and community-based work as spaces for leadership, opportunity, and long-term wellbeing.
Regeneration Requires Investment
Reflections from the Skoll World Forum ultimately point to a deeper issue at the heart of WEA’s work: women are trusted in theory, but too often underfunded in practice.
Globally, we speak about resilience, stability, and thriving communities as collective priorities. Yet we continue to underinvest in the very people most consistently proven to create those outcomes: grassroots women leaders.
This is not simply a funding gap. It is a reflection of whose knowledge is valued, who is trusted to lead, and which forms of expertise are recognized within global systems of power.
If regeneration is the goal, then the path forward must involve amplifying grassroots leadership, investing directly in women-led solutions, and ensuring communities have the training, networks, and support necessary to scale their work sustainably and ethically.
The future of environmental resilience is already being built — in farms, villages, restoration projects, and women-led networks across the Global South.
The question is whether the world is finally ready to invest in it.
