African Forestry sector stakeholders say they have now been empowered to stand to the challenge climate finance opportunities up for grabs. They expressed satisfaction and their readiness after a one week training workshop  in Douala, Cameroon March 14-18, 2022 organized by the African Forest Forum, AFF in collaboration with Global Forest Financing Facilitation Network – GFFFN).

Rosine Bayogo, technical director, Timberland Industries, Central African Republic says knowledge acquired will help her improve in climate change project drafting in her organization.

“Climate finance is a challenging task requiring some technical details. The workshop had permitted me sharpen my knowhow on some of the salient details in project drafting for funding”, Rosine said.

The same optimism was shared by Tabita Radian of Ivory Coast, who lauded the initiative by African Forest Forum to train forest stakeholders.

“Training of forest stakeholders is the best way to ensure not only forest governance but also providing the opportunity to better access finance. I am elated because the resource persons we had showed great knowledge on the issues and we are all going back very satisfied ” Tabita said.

Knowledge acquired ranged from project drafting strategies, sources of finance[domestic, regional, international] and the intricacies involved, Models of financing, risqué involved, networking and partnership etc.

Climate finance experts say Climate change presents a US$3 trillion investment opportunity up for grabs in Africa by 2030 with the private sector expected to lead in driving green investment and development.

According to Barbara Buchner, the Executive Director for Climate Finance Program at Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) , Climate change stakeholders should mobilize and work in synergy to stand the chance of grabbing the available funding opportunities.

Even though opportunities exist to finance climate change projects, African countries still find it hard accessing climate funding. One of the key reasons according to experts is that stakeholders in the forest sector don’t fully master what funding opportunities exist, and how to draft bankable projects to attract such funding.

“African Forest stakeholders have to be abreast with the different funding opportunities and also be empowered with skills on drafting bankable project,” says Peter Gondo of the UNFF Secretariat.

AFF says they are committed to pushing their drive to better empower forest stakeholders in this regard.

“Training is one of the key roles and objective of AFF and we committed to working with all the forest stakeholders in the continent. Just we are training now in Francophone Africa, so is another scheduled for English speaking African countries in the weeks ahead ”, says Dr Marie Louise Avana-Tientcheu, of AFF.

The participants, drawn from   governmental / forest administration and non-governmental organizations (and this includes the private sector)  have come from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Togo

The  papers presented by the different resource persons, Peter Gondo, Larwanou Mahamane, Kouassigan Tovivo all highlighted globally the multiple climate funding opportunities and institutions as well as the elements potential project proposals need to address to be able to attract funding.

The African Forest Forum (AFF) is a pan-African non-governmental organization with its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. It is an association of individuals who share the quest for and commitment to the sustainable management, use and conservation of the forest and tree resources of Africa for the socio- economic wellbeing of its people and for the stability and improvement of its environment. The purpose of AFF is to provide a platform and create an enabling environment for independent and objective analysis, advocacy and advice on relevant policy and technical issues pertaining to achieving sustainable management, use and conservation of Africa’s forest and tree resources as part of efforts to reduce poverty, promote gender equality, economic and social development and protect the environment.

Elias NTUNGWE