The Central African Forests Initiative (CAFI) is making 45 million euros available to support the Republic of the Congo in its strategies for land use planning and preservation of natural resources, as part of the finalization of the instruction of a sustainable land use program in the country.
This is to accompany and support the various milestones of the memorandum of intent that Congo President Denis Sassou N’Guesso signed with French President Emmanuel Macron in October 2019, according to the director of the French Development Agency (AFD) in Congo, Lionel Cafferini, who made the announcement to Arlette Soudan-Nonault, Congolese Minister of Tourism and the Environment. The target is the establishment of a national spatial planning policy in the Congo that preserves natural resources and fights against climate change.
The amount announced relates to two phases of the land use program. A first where the CAFI Fund has delegated resources to AFD for an amount of 15 million USD and where AFD, on behalf of the French State, will mobilize 7 million euros in additional funding. Under investigation, the second phase should mobilize 15 to 25 million USD from the CAFI initiative, to which will be added 8 million euros in grant resources from the French state via AFD.
Indeed, the Congo Basin being a geographical area which brings a lot to humanity, the Congolese government has expressed a set of orientations, strategies and objectives. Therefore, AFD considered that these objectives of combating climate change, preserving natural resources and economic development meet the broad guidelines of the French state. The objective is to sign the financing agreements by October 2021 for effective implementation of this program by early 2022.
As a reminder, the Central African Forest Initiative announced, in a statement published in September 2019, that it had validated an agreement with the Congo. A text which provided, among other things, for the release of 65 million dollars for the protection of the forest and peatlands of the Congo Basin.
