CONGO BASIN FOREST PARTNERSHIP

Information Bulletin N° 1 /09

Happy New Year 2009 and all the best wishes to CBFP's partners in the region and around the world! May the next year be as full of energy and rewarding experiences as the one that has just come to an end. This is also the moment where we would like to thank CBFP members for their tremendous efforts in supporting the German facilitation team in promoting dialogue and coordination within our partnership's network. We know that we can count on the same spirit of united driving force for 2009, where our facilitation phase will already enter into its second period. Time is truly flying by when you are doing useful things! Despite the prevailing global gloominess, we wish success, joy and prosperity for the upcoming year to all our partners.

This issue's topics :

• Stepping up to the next level: CEFDHAC's reform is getting implemented by setting up national fora
• CBFP's website has established itself as a referential platform
• Recent events and achievements
• ....and upcoming agenda items
• Reader's Corner

Stepping up to the next level: CEFDHAC's reform is getting implemented by setting up national fora

Áfter the Council of Ministers accepted the proposed reforms fort he Conference Central African Moist Forest Ecosystems (CEFDHAC), COMIFAC's member countries have started to organise national forums. The last one to be held will take place in Cameroon in early 2009. The institutional decision to replace national contact groups with national forums is a testament  to the ambition of the reformed CEFDHAC. A 'dynamic debate driven by a dynamic structure' will revive this sub-regional institution, which is held in esteem by many for the way it fosters multi-actor consultation, thereby involving stakeholders in the sustainable management of Central African forest ecosystems. Bringing together all sides at national level, the forums will now be presided over by a member of civil society who is democratically elected or chosen by consensus. They will also have a secretariat based at the national coordination point of the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC), and a national facilitator (or patron) who will support the secretariat in its day-to-day operations. .

Mr Bihini Won wa Musiti, regional GTZ/COMIFAC consultant at the COMIFAC Support Office, feels that the process of organising new national forums, prior to implementing the Sub-Regional Steering Committee, has proved to be a very effective way of mobilising different actors. ‘The national forums have now been recognised as a unique opportunity for egalitarian participation and networking; they enable the various national actors to develop working synergies.’ For Mr Bihini, the fact that the new structure was launched shortly after the evaluation of the 2006-2008 national operations plans for the Convergence Plan also contributed to the ownership of the 2009-2011 operations plans at national level. ‘Remember that CEFDHAC has been mandated by Article 4 of the new COMIFAC Collaboration Agreement to help the various actors, particularly networks, in implementing the Convergence Plan. It is preparing to fulfil this function in the interests of multilateral consultation.’

To better appreciate the extent of this reform, it might be worth taking a brief look at the history of CEFDHAC, which was set up well before the Yaoundé Declaration in 1999, during a conference on the sustainable conservation and use of forest ecosystems held in Brazzaville in 1996. It stemmed from the desire of UICN members and partners to create a forum for discussing the major issues of concern to all those involved in managing forests in Central Africa. And that’s just what happened – representatives of civil society, members of parliament, researchers, and delegates from all sorts of nature conservation organisations are initiating systematic exchanges and regular consultations through national contact groups. The idea is to bring about a convergence of viewpoints, and maybe even policies, between the countries of Central Africa.

The creation of COMIFAC and the signing of the Brazzaville Treaty in 2005 certainly were a success for all those involved in the consolidated sub-regional cooperation initiative. But they also needed to find a place in the modified institutional framework, with COMIFAC as its new decision-making body. And all the more so since an organisational reform of CEFDHAC was deemed essential following an evaluation carried out by the UICN, its patron organisation. Contrary to expectations, problems in the field were identified, such as the inactivity of national contact groups and insufficient operational capacities. The evaluation report claimed there was a lack of dynamism, which could be explained by the lack of clear mandates for the UICN and CEFDHAC. The signing of the COMIFAC constitutional treaty was therefore a great opportunity to revitalise and harmonise the steering framework, thus enabling CEFDHAC and COMIFAC to jointly exert their influence. In Article 18 of the treaty, for instance, provisions are made for concluding framework conventions to improve the management of relations between sub-regional partner organisations such as CEFDHAC. Cooperation between CEFDHAC and COMIFAC, which had until now been tentative, has taken shape in decisions relating to personnel structures and the financial plan, which proposes to allocate to CEFDHAC a percentage of the proceeds of COMIFAC’s autonomous financing mechanism.

At sub-regional level, the appointment of the Executive Secretary of COMIFAC as a member of the CEFDHAC Steering Committee (CPR) bodes well for an improved channelling of the outcome of discussions held in multi-actor forums. In the opposite direction, the free-flowing circulation of decisions will help in the monitoring of decisions and recommendations made by CEFDHAC. In short, the Sub-Regional Steering Committee (CPR) is the decision-making body acting as an intermediary between the grass roots of a vivid civil society and political decision-makers. Nationally, this link will be forged thanks to the appointment of the COMIFAC national coordinator as secretary of the National Forum. In addition to the representative from the COMIFAC Executive Secretariat, the Steering Committee is made up of ten representatives from national forums, regional network coordinators and the sub-regional facilitator. Hence the need to organise the national forums before summoning the Steering Committee, and the importance of mobilising various civil society networks.


Leticia Pina Cortez, specialist adviser at the COMIFAC Support Office, explained that the election of presidents at these initial forums was not just an excellent way of mobilising members. ‘Held in the presence of high-ranking political representatives, the transparency of the appointment process itself added credibility to the leadership of the new presidents.’ She also stressed that the success of the forums will depend largely on the ingenuity of these two women and seven men, appointed by ballot or mutual consent, who have accepted the responsibility of a first presidential term of office. For Burundi, Savin Sabumukiza (CARPE/UICN); for the Congo, Joel Loumeto (RIAT Congo); for Gabon, Edwige Eyang Effa (FENSED - REFADD); for Equatorial Guinea, Eloisa Sales IPUWA (REFADD-ADMAD); for the Central African Republic, Patrice Passe-Sanand (Central African Organisation for Nature Protection, OCDN); for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bienvenu Ngoy (GTF); for Rwanda, Thaddée Habiyambere (CARPE/UICN), for Sao Tomé and Principe, Luis Mario Almeida (Monte Pico), and for Chad, Pierre Rimgoto Kara (education unit officer/INADES). The presidents’ details will be available on the PBFC website until the CEFDHAC web domain is up and running again (see link below).

Despite the efforts of the COMIFAC (BFA) Support Office, these initial start-up forums have not yet succeeded in reaching people in the national provinces. The majority of participants are from the government and civil society, and there is little participation on the part of representatives from the private sector. According to Mr Bihini, forum members will increasingly be chosen in order to meet the challenges of the priority actions agreed. Initially, the support provided in organising general meetings at sub-regional level, and the support given to two of the CEFDHAC member networks – the Network of Indigenous and Local People in Central Africa (REPALEAC) and the Network of Young People (REJEFAC) – has shown it is important for networks to operate well if they want to make their voices heard nationally. Although organising the workshops for these two general meetings was no simple matter, the highly-engaged participation of representatives, particularly those from REJEFAC, in the various forums seems to have had an immediate impact on the meetings. The active participation of members of REFADD (the African Women’s Network for Sustainable Development) and REPAR (the Network of Parliamentarians for the Sustainable Management of Forest and Humid Ecosystems in Central Africa), two well-structured networks, was also welcomed by all forum participants. The active participation of members of various networks in the national forums has raised the profile of these networks, even those that do not yet have an established national presence. The regional network coordinators therefore now need to consider developing and/or implementing their national structures.  


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Find out more...
• All major documents related to CEFDHAC's reform are posted on CBFP's website
• "Le CEFDHAC veut renforcer la gestion des ecosystèmes forestiers du Bassin du Congo" (11-12-08 on gaboneco.com)
• "Le Président du Sénat recoit en audience une délégation du REPAR-CEFDHAC" (December 2008 on the Burundi Senat's internet portal)

CBFP's website has turned into a referential platform for info seekers

CBFP's website, which has first been created and launched by the French facilitation, has turned out to become a real success story. After a marginal downturn during the second trimester in 2008, probably due to the transitional process that lead to a first relaunch by the German facilitation, it succeded in  establishing itself as a referential platform for anyone seeking to get some first-hand information on the partnership's scope of activities and regional issues in general. During the last trimester of 2008 the number of visitors would not stop growing, and we were able to count an average number of  12410 visitors per month, as compared to  10579 visitors in the beginning of the year. For a better comprehension of these numbers, please keep in mind that a visit occurs when some remote site makes a request for a page on your server for the first time. As long as the same site keeps making requests within a given timeout period, which in our case is 30 minutes, they will all be considered part of the same Visit. Since only pages will trigger a visit, remotes sites that link to graphic and other non- page URLs will not be counted in the visit totals, reducing the number of false visits.

Since october 2006, we have installed another software-managed monitoring and evaluation tool that allows us to count the exact number of downloads requested for documents of special interest. These documents have to be saved into a specific database equipped with the very counter engine mentioned before. At the moment, CBFP 's info flyers are first in the leading pack, with more than 300 downloads (since October!) for the French info-flyer and more than 200 for the English version. Also on top of the list are the Convergence Plan (174) and the Cooperation Framework (151). We would also like to remind you that the remarkable share of downloads reached for documents that are not exclusively posted on our website, such as the United Nations Framwork Conventions or the Yaoundé Declaration, is a strong indicator for CBFP's strategic placement on globally operating search engins and, in consequence, its ability to effectively promote its objectives through increased visibility on the world wide web. Just try to do your own search on Google or Yahoo by using a combination of keywords related to CBFP's actions or events in the region, and you will (hopefully) come to notice that our partnership's site is always among the first results displayed by the engine!

Finally, we dare to conclude that CBFP's "baby bulletin" is much appreciated by our partners as the number of subscribed readers is constantly growing as well, with a slight peak after the publication of the second bulletin last August. When first diffusing the bulletin we had decided to transfer email addresses from the email listserv to the newsletter software, assuming that the target group would be more or less the same. We started with 203 recipients. In the meantime, 260 people are registered! Please note that for legal and practical reasons we try to avoid adding addresses ourselves. If you want to subscribe to the bulletin, all you have to do is to go on our website, turn to the bulletin subscribe section and enter your email address before pressing the submit button!

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Find out more...
• all the statistics quoted above can be viewed on www.cbfp.org

Recent events and achievements...

• The European Commission signed an agreement for contributing €2.5 million to Central Africa World Heritage Forest Initiative on December 18, 2008 in Libreville. The programme aims to improve the sustainable management of 3 transboundary protected areas in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo and in Gabon: Tri National Dja-Odzala-Minkébé (TRIDOM), Tri National de la Sangha (TNS) and the Gamba Conkouati landscape.  The overall objective is to support the States Parties and members of the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) in establishing a Convergence Plan for the sustainable management of the forests of the Congo Basin (Brazzaville 2005).
Find out more...

• RIFFEAC's"Regional Seminar on Forest Environment Training Programmes in central Africa", which took place on December 1-3, 2008 in Douala, Cameroon, underlined the importance of coherent education politics.  Training initiatives in the field of Forest-Environment in the Central African sub-region have not only multiplied, they have also become more and more professional since November 2005, when the first meeting of the Regional Coordination Panel (Cadre de Concertation Régional CCR) dedicated to training matters took place in Kinshasa. Pushed by this dynamic development and eager to offer a regular update on the region’s achivements, RIFFEAC, with the support of COMIFAC and other partners, has organised this regional seminar.
Find out more...

• Conclusions from the "State of the Forests 2008" validation workshop on November 18 - 20, 2008 in Kinshasa. Three days of work were structured by presentations and working group discussions on issues that allowed participants to fully embrace the data collection, approval and dissemination process, while the plenary sessions further enhanced the discussion on the legal aspects linked to the use of data in the upcoming publication. Florence Palla (RAPAC) presents the workshp's general conclusions.
Find out more...

• The sixth meeting of the Regional Advisory Council (CCR), on October 30-31 2008 in Brazzaville, enhanced opportunities for dialogue within the partnership. According to CBFP's Faciitator Hans Schipulle, "the regular frequency of our encounters is in itself a tangible sign of our partnership's vitality in a on-moving Congo Basin region." Part of the meeting's working topics can thus be considered as a logial continuation of the vision developed during the Bangui CCR (March 2008), and which had already been centered on information, communication and exchange in order to attain a common level of understanding.
Find out more...

• Dialogue on the initiatives concerning REDD in the Congo Basin on October 23, 2008 in Washington : At the invitation of the Central African Forests Commission (COMIFAC) and the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP), a one-day meeting was hosted by WWF in Washington DC on 23rd October 2008. The purpose was to increase mutual understanding about and collaboration among a number of new initiatives that are intended to assist the countries of the Congo Basin to prepare themselves for developing and implementing activities to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) in line with the Bali Action Plan of the UNFCCC. You will find the entire documentation related to the event on CBFP's website 
Find out more...

...and upcoming agenda items

• Post-Poznan Meeting of the COMIFAC Working Group on Climate Change (GT CCC)  (26.01. - 29.01.09 in Kinshasa) • Yearly Coordination Workshop for COMIFAC and partners channeling their support through the COMIFAC Support Office "Bureau d'appui" (9.02. - 13.02. in Kribi)  • Dialogue for Certification Workshop (25.2. in  Douala) • Workshop for delivering final conclusions for the "Evaluation of the Implementation of COMIFAC's Convergence Plan" and presentation of the new operational plan 2009-2011 (23.02 - 27.02 in Douala)

View all upcoming agenda items listed on our website...

Reader's Corner

• Radio France International (RFI) , in his "Sunday Economies" show of January 4, 2009, has broadcasted a feature story about the complex issue often called "the wood sector crisis" and its impact on the Central African Republic as a regional case study. " The Loubaye forests. Far away as they are, they still get caught up by the global economic crisis." You can listen to or download the radio show on RFI's website. 
Listen to the show... 

• In order to reflect the quality of CBFP members' scientific contributions, the German facilitation has added an additional research section to www.cbfp.org. This shortlisted selection of research documents and working papers that will be updated regularly, in order to keep track of  ongoing discussions and  specific research committments. The latest paper on regulating industrial concessions has been provided by Alain Karsenty (CIRAD). It offers a new angle to the question of industrial concessions by analysing  the incentives inherent to different concession and land tenure systems, and their ability to shape actors' choices for or against a sustainable forest management strategies.
Read the research paper...

• IISD Reporting Services is renown for its mailing list services diffusing up-to-date information including more than often fist quality original analyses. Respectful to this reputation, IISD was among the first to offer a comprehensive overview dealing with the of impact of the last meeting of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poznan in December 2008 (COP14).
Read the summary...

Information bulletin published by
German Facilitation of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership