Supporting Efforts to Protect Forests and Biodiversity in the Congo Basin

Context

In the Congo Basin of Central Africa, the second-largest tropical rainforest on Earth spans several countries. Its preservation is vitally important to the world's climate and biodiversity.

This was why the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) was founded at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. As the CBFP, neighbouring nations of the Congo Basin and representatives from the fields of science, business, politics and civil society have banded together to intensify their efforts to protect Central Africa's forest resources and ensure their sustainable management.

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) took over the facilitation of the CBFP in 2020.

Objective

The organisational and communicative capabilities of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership has been firmly established in order to coordinate, harmonise and support the protection and sustainable management of forest resources across the nations of Central Africa

Approach

The CBFP coordinates and strengthens efforts to protect the Congo Basin rainforest and promote its sustainable use. As a result, the management of the region's natural resources is improving, which in turn is having a positive impact on the standard of living in the Congo Basin.

As the current facilitator of the CBFP, BMZ is focusing on the following topics:

Promoting the peaceful resolution of growing challenges related to the trend towards transhumance in the Sahel region and Central Africa
Formulating a common position for the members of the CBFP for negotiations of the Rio Conventions
Establishing a more in-depth dialogue with Chinese partners
Developing more dynamic internal organisation and coordination skills and continuing to work on past facilitators’ focus topics

At present, the project is organising a conference on cross-border transhumance. It is also coordinating a work group tasked with developing an efficient, long-term financing concept for forest preservation.