Learning To Monitor Sustainable Forests In Francophone Africa

Several countries from Francophone Africa are involved in the Climate Investment Funds’ Forest Investment Program (FIP). Some, like Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Côte d’Ivoire, have accumulated a wealth of experience on how to implement inclusive, country-led monitoring and reporting systems for their FIP investment plans. Others, like the Republic of Congo, Tunisia, and Rwanda, are less familiar with FIP procedures. In January 2023, the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) gathered representatives from these countries in Brazzaville to enable the newer FIP countries to learn how other countries in the region monitor and report on FIP investments, gender, and social inclusion.

Why Brazzaville? As one of FIP’s latest recipient countries, the Republic of Congo is in the process of launching its implementation phase. The country faces many challenges linked to climate change, but also features enormous potential, with 69% of the territory covered in forest. Congo’s USD28.5 million FIP plan aims to create the necessary regulatory, technical, and capacity frameworks needed to enable forest preservation and the emergence of a green economy. To ensure Congo’s FIP plan reaches the right stakeholder groups, delivers measurable impact, and generates learning for the wider sustainable forestry community, the country is now embarking on the annual monitoring & reporting (M&R) of its investment plan.

Minister of Forestry Economy Rosalie Matondo opened the workshop and explained: “I would like to say that we believe in [the CIF] (…) We need to find partners to finance clean development, finance less carbon-intensive development, finance development that does not cause deforestation and forest degradation. We need this FIP funding (…) to help the country to develop carbon sink plantations, to develop agroforestry plantations (…) which are sources of income for local communities and indigenous populations, who live in precarious conditions.”

The Minister joined participants from recipient country governments, civil society organizations, indigenous groups, local communities and other stakeholder groups at the workshop. They benefited from the workshop to share their experience customizing FIP’s participatory M&R approach to their own contexts, and to learn more about gender and social inclusion. “As part of the implementation of the FIP investment programs, all the countries are not at the same level of advancement. There are countries that are well advanced because, since 2010, they have been implementing their investment plan. There are some countries that have just received funding for the implementation of their investment plan,” said Burkina Faso’s Mamadou Batiene, REDD+ National Focal Point and FIP National Focal Point at the Ministry of Environment, Water and Sanitation. “So, by coming to this workshop we can benefit from the lessons learned, from each other's experiences, because we have been implementing our forest investment plan since 2014, so there are lessons learned at our level. There are other countries such as Côte d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo which have other experiences: our forests are dry, but they have humid tropical forests.”

Through FIP, CIF has been successfully funding sustainable forests and nature-based solutions to climate change in the African region for almost15 years. Monitoring & reporting will continue to be key as current countries continue to advance in implementation and as CIF’s Nature, People & Climate (NPC) program looks to build on this experience. Two African countries (Egypt and Kenya), and the Zambezi region (Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique), with diverse geographical and ecological landscapes, are part of the first group of NPC countries.