Mapping International Funding Flows To Support Forest And Environmental Sectors In Central Africa

Central Africa is home to the second largest rainforest in the world, the Congo Basin. However, while this massive forest block stores huge amounts of carbon, it receives significantly less international funding than the Amazon and Southeast Asia’s forests. Financing being a central to combat climate change, this study aims to map international flows supporting the forest and environment sectors in Central Africa.This publication analyses the funding flows over the last decade in support of nature conservation and sustainable management of the Congo Basin, presents various themes covered by the current financing and identifies possible imbalances. It also provides a comparative analysis between financing flows to the various forest basins in the world and identifies opportunities for increasing financing for forests in Central Africa.Specifically, the report provides data on the Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Central Africa in the period 2008-2017. The authors, using a well-structured methodology bring out the various characteristics of funding to Central African countries highlighting the top bilateral donor, Germany, and the top multilateral donor, the European Union.Richard Eba’a Atyi, lead author, is the regional coordinator for the Center of International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Central Africa. He also coordinates the Strengthening and institutionalization of the Central African Forest Observatory (RIOFAC) project which supported this study. He worked in collaboration with Liboum Mbonayem - forestry engineer and research officer at CIFOR in Central Africa, Phillipe Guizol – senior scientist at CIFOR and The French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and Ibrahim M. Favada – Forest economist.