Project profile — Support to the Congo Basin Forest Partnership Facilitation

• South of Sahara, regional (100.00%)

• Forestry policy and administrative management:
Forestry policy and administrative management (31210) (20.00%)
Forestry education/training (31281) (80.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (significant objective)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (significant objective)
• Climate change mitigation (principal objective)
• Climate Change Adaptation (principal objective)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (significant objective)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

The Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) works in close relationship with the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) to promote the conservation and sustainable management of the forest ecosystems of the Congo Basin. This includes protecting the region’s biodiversity, promoting sustainable forest governance and improving the population’s living standards. The CBFP is a non-binding partnership established in 2002 at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg today with 70 organizations, including the ten Member States of the COMIFAC, bilateral and multilateral organizations, non-governmental organizations, research institutions and private sector representatives. This project seeks to support the CBFP to provide additional support for technical assistance on climate change to civil society organizations, COMIFAC working groups on climate change, forestry governance, biodiversity and desertification, and to academics from the COMIFAC countries. These actions are consistent with COMIFAC’s Convergence Plan and CBFP priorities of supporting the region to implement key recommendations related to forestry emerging from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (i) government policies and programs related to the sustainable management and conservation of forest ecosystems in the Congo Basin in relation to climate change and poverty reduction reflect more widely and appropriately the views of stakeholders in the Congo Basin; and (ii) the coordination of technical and financial partners for the sustainable management and conservation of the ecosystems of the Congo Basin in relation to climate change and poverty reduction through the Congo Basin Forest Partnership Facilitation is improved.

Results achieved at the end of the project: (i) 26 academics and professionals have better knowledge of sustainable development, especially in relations to the management of forest carbon. University training was provided on emerging environmental issues such as forest carbon, climate change, and environmental diplomacy; (ii) approximately 7,000 people have access to information on climate change and forest management through new community and/or local radios on the air in three Congo Basin countries (Burundi, Rwanda, Congo); and (iii) 350 professionals in the Congo Basin have strengthened their knowledge of the institutionalization of gender and how to integrate gender into the sustainable management of forest ecosystems at an international workshop organized in March 2013 in Cameroon. These have contributed to: (i) Cameroon benefiting, for example, from a proposal for an international funding process on carbon that reflects the positions of the indigenous peoples of Cameroon whose knowledge on sustainable management and climate change has been strengthened by the project; and (ii) strengthening the coordination of technical and financial support for gender integration in programming on the sustainable management of Central African forest ecosystems.

• Proactive disclosure