20 July 2010
The R-PP of the Republic of Congo along with R-PPs from Argentina, Costa Rica, Kenya and Nepal were deemed of sufficient quality to move forward in the process, at the sixth Participants Committee meeting of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). This means that the World Bank is authorized to proceed with its due diligence and enter into a grant agreement with the country for a $3.4 million readiness grant.
The Republic of Congo’s R-PP receives a positive signal from the FCPF
Tropical deforestation and forest degradation are currently contributing to 17-20 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) responsible for the world’s changing climate. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) insists that limiting GHG emissions from the forest sector in developing countries through the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism is crucial to address the continuous dangerous anthropogenic interference with the world’s climate system.
REDD is meant to compensate developing countries for slowing their rate of deforestation in order to protect the world’s climate through reduced emissions, but also it provides opportunities for biodiversity conservation and income generation for socio-economic development. Multiple REDD-related initiatives are being launched throughout the developing world under the direction of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). Developed in 2007 by the World Bank’s Carbon Unit, the FCPF aims to channel financing for country-led forest sector reform by providing value to standing forests. It has the dual objectives of building capacity for REDD in developing countries in tropical and subtropical regions, and piloting a program of performance-based incentive payments in selected countries, in order to set the stage for a future global REDD carbon market.
One of the specially targeted regions for REDD activities is the Congo basin in Central Africa. The Congo basin, the second largest tropical forest in the world after the Amazon, is a 500 million acre wide area situated in between six African countries - Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo (RoC). The Basin is estimated to contain 26 percent of the world’s rainforests, and several countries in the region have been selected by the FCPF to implement the REDD program, among them the RoC.
With 22,471,000 hectares of forests, the RoC is second only to the DRC in terms of tropical rainforest coverage among Congo basin countries. Over 80% of the national forest area in the RoC belongs to the national forest estate, which makes the state the primary forest owner in the country. But, these forests are the principle source of subsistence (food, energy, shelter, medicine, etc.) for more than 60% of the country’s population.
Currently, the RoC- like many other countries in the Congo basin region- is poorly ranked on transparency and governance indexes measuring rule of law, human development, and corruption. Under an atmosphere of total uncertainty, REDD made its debut in the RoC with the approval of the country’s Readiness Plan Idea Note (R-PIN) in 2008. Between February and April 2010, the RoC completed the formulation of its REDD Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PP), which was submitted to the FCPF on April 19th, 2010. The R-PP was up for two examinations: (a) the review by the FCPF’s Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) for completeness and quality in meeting the criteria for R-PPs set forth by the FCPF Information Memorandum, and (b) formal consideration for approval during the FCPF’s sixth Participants Committee (PC) meeting in Guyana from June 28th – July 1st, 2010 along with other R-PPs from Argentina, Costa Rica, Kenya, and Nepal.
Before the release of the TAP review, the Congolese Platform for the Sustainable Management of Forests (Plate forme Congolaise pour la Gestion Durable des Forêts), a platform of civil society organizations working on forests and REDD issues sent out a statement denouncing the lack of public participation in the R-PP formulation. In the statement (dated June 10th, 2010), the platform stated that civil society and indigenous peoples in the RoC “have not been involved in the process of developing the Congo RPP. The platform had access to this R-PP on short notice; which did not allow it to make its contribution on the contents of this document.”[Civil Society Statement, June 10th, 2010].
On June 14th, 2010, the TAP completed its review of the RoC R-PP saying, “The Republic of Congo has produced an impressive R-PP, which was highly appreciated by its reviewers. All those involved in its preparation should feel well pleased with their achievements so far.” However, the TAP noted also that “The document does not go in many details and generally refers to consultancy work and pilot projects that will be conducted during the R-PP implementation. The R-PP is ambitious and the TAP has some doubts that, due to the lack of capacities, a number of planned studies and pilot projects might not be implementable as smoothly as expected in the R-PP document. While the Terms of Reference (TORs) for the proposed studies are mostly attached, the role, contents and expected outputs of the numerous proposed pilot projects remain vague.”[TAP review].
The RoC government- through the REDD National Coordination- replied to the civil society platform statement on June 22nd, asserting that the REDD process is inclusive and participatory. According to the REDD National Coordination letter, all stakeholders have been engaged in the development of the REDD+ R-PP, through individual discussions as well as numerous workshops held throughout the proposal development process.
On June 24th, 2010, just two days after the release of the RoC REDD National Coordination letter, a group of three international NGOs (Rainforest Foundation UK, Greenpeace and Global Witness) released a joint statement for PC-6 recommending that the Participants Committee not approve the RoC R-PP. According to the three NGOs, the RoC R-PP lacks coherence and substance, fails to propose solutions to identified problems, appears to have been overly influenced by industry with little civil society participation, and if implemented would likely lead to negative impacts on forests, indigenous peoples and local communities.
This joint statement triggered a rebuttal from a few Congolese civil society organizations, released on June 25th, 2010 confirming the effective participation of civil society organizations in the development of the R-PP and calling for the boycott of the civil society platform statement released earlier on June 10th, 2010. This confrontation among Congolese civil society came to an end on June 28th, 2010 when the civil society platform released an explanation letter emphasizing that the platform had access to the R-PP only on short notice, which did not allow it to make a meaningful contribution to the contents of the document. Furthermore, the R-PP was elaborated in haste and contains many contradictions that deserve to be clarified. Based on that, the platform requested a series of large national consultations in order to discuss the preoccupations of all stakeholders.
The PC6 proceeded with a detailed review of the RoC R-PP and noted the following issues: the R-PP needs (in order to clarify REDD projects’ management arrangements) to directly address drivers of deforestation and distinguish them from underlying causes of deforestation; to conduct a capacity analysis of monitoring and evaluation systems (MRV); to provide specific attention to indigenous peoples in consultation and participation; to conduct more analysis of policies and governance; to provide more information on benefit sharing mechanisms; to provide a clear analysis of the capacity gap to implement the Strategic Environment and Social Assessment (SESA) and not rely solely on the World Bank; to provide data on deforestation and degradation and; to involve indigenous peoples in monitoring activities.
Despite the controversy surrounding it, the Participants Committee decided to approve the RoC R-PP along with all other R-PPs submitted for consideration at PC-6. All of the R-PPs presented at the meeting, which included Argentina, Costa Rica, The Republic of Congo, Kenya and Nepal were deemed of sufficient quality to move forward in the process. This means that the World Bank is authorized to proceed with its due diligence and enter into a grant agreement with the country for a $3.4 million readiness grant. Each of the resolutions approving the R-PPs was accompanied by an “annex” which summarized the issues that the country needed to address before signing a grant agreement. These annexes attempt to capture the main areas for improvement recommended by the TAP, the PC reviewers, or in the discussion.
However, because of a poor TAP review, conflicting national civil society positions, and the joint statement by international NGOs, the RoC R-PP was significantly delayed. Civil society organizations were successful in ensuring that the annex for the RoC resolution stipulated that the government would have to re-submit their R-PP to the FMT after revisions, at which point the FMT would give the PC 30 days to voice concerns or a “no-objection”, with the possibility that a final decision could be postponed until PC-7 in November if a voting member of the PC actually raises an objection.
The discussion on the RoC R-PP ended with the FCPF recalling that we are not talking only about R-PP approval, but rather assessment, which leads to grant allocation subject to certain conditions. The RoC government delegates said that they are ready to move forward, but that the RoC needs more support from the African Commission on Forests COMIFAC and the international community. A positive signal from the international community will help with donors’ support of consultations and other readiness activities. With that positive signal provided at the PC6, it is all up to the Congolese government now to make REDD an effectively inclusive and participatory process that will lead to forest preservation with direct benefits for communities on the ground.