Context
CAFI's intervention logic focuses on building partnerships between the Executive Board and partner countries to support partner countries in meeting their needs for sustainable management of land, forests and natural resources and to implement their low-emission development strategies. To establish these needs and strategies, countries develop multi-sectoral investment frameworks (or plans), covering all sectors affecting or affected by deforestation issues, which highlight the financing needs for an appropriate response.
Cameroon has a natural ecological heritage of global importance: some 212,500 square kilometers of tropical forests, located on the edge of the Congo Basin are mostly well preserved. It is the second largest forest massif in Africa after the DRC, but its preservation and biodiversity is under threat. Poaching and corruption, illegal logging and competing claims of use are among the causes.
One year after signing the CAFI Joint Statement in 2015, CAFI has allocated a preparatory grant of US$1 million to support cross-sectoral policy dialogue and the development of National Investment Framework (NIF), a coherent and comprehensive investment framework to address the drivers of deforestation, reduce associated emissions and use land and natural resources more sustainably. The implementation of the CAFI preparatory grant was awarded to two agencies: the World Bank (US$542,000) and AFD (US$458,000). However, upon the instruction of the CAFI Executive Board, the AFD portion of the grant was never implemented and reverted to the CAFI account.
National Partner:
Ministry of the Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development (MINEPDED)
Implementing Agency:
World Bank, French Development Agency
All financial information for this programme may be found on the MPTF Gateway here.
USD approved by CAFI EB
USD transferred by MPTF to WB and AFD as implementing agencies
USD disbursed for grant implementation
Impact
The development of the National Investment Framework, the political dialogue conducted with Cameroon and the national debates around certain forests, including that of Ebo, made it possible to mobilize government authorities such as the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Land Management, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Prime Minister's Office and technical and financial partners as well as to initiate discussions on how to support the implementation of sustainable development strategies in Cameroon. As a result of this work, sustainable land use and climate change considerations have been integrated into the National Development Plan 2030 and the rural sector development strategy.
Results
A first draft of the National Investment Framework was prepared in 2019 that contains an updated analysis of the main drivers of deforestation and the underlying causes and the current status of the National Development Strategy. The document identifies possible strategic entry points for investments in each different sub-sector and value chain, but does not provide details on possible future investments because these have not yet been negotiated with the respective stakeholders. As a result, the NIF remains incomplete to date and has not yet been formally submitted by the government to the CAFI Executive Board.
The National Investment Framework was presented and discussed at a workshop in December 2019 with the participation of several Cameroonian General Secretaries. This helped raise their awareness of the future impact of the development trajectory on forest cover and triggered discussions on the policies and measures that CAFI could help finance to mitigate this impact.
The draft National Investment Framework proposes investment options aligned with the priority axes of the national strategies in the rural sector (agriculture, land use planning, forestry) and the industry and services sector (energy, agro-industry, forestry, mining) and outlines five main areas for potential CAFI involvement:
- Securing degraded Forest Management Units (FMUs) with long-term funding to prevent them from being converted to agriculture
- Refinement, adoption and implementation of agreed sectoral and sub-sectoral strategies for oil palm, rubber, cocoa, timber (in coordination with the FLEGT-VPA process to promote the purchase of legal timber in public procurement) and smart mining of forests
- Land use planning at the regional and local levels
- Land tenure reform
- Small-scale agriculture and food security
Areas of intervention
This program targets the national level.
Complementarity
This program is mainly based on Cameroon's various national development planning strategies for 2020-2030, notably the National Development Strategy 2030, the National REDD+ Strategy and the Rural Sector Development Strategy.
Key Resources
Funding request for Cameroon National National Framework
Funding request for Cameroon National National Framework, 23 Aug 2016
23 Aug 2016
Cameroon National REDD+ Strategy (in French)
Cameroon National REDD+ Strategy (in French), 2 Jun 2018
2 Jun 2018
2019 Annual Report for DRC, RoC, Cameroon and CAR (World Bank) / Rapport annuel 2019 de la Banque mondiale pour le Cameroun, la RCA et la Rep Congo (ENG)
2019 Annual Report for DRC, RoC, Cameroon and CAR (World Bank) / Rapport annuel 2019 de la Banque mondiale pour le Cameroun, la RCA et la Rep Congo (ENG), 31 Dec 2019
31 Dec 2019
Link to CAFI Drive - Cameroon Programming
Link to CAFI Drive - Cameroon Programming, 9 Mar 2021
9 Mar 2021
Photocredit: Flore de Preneuf, World Bank