On February 12 and 13, in Bandundu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development and National REDD Coordination as well as the provincial government launched the design phase of a large scale program to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The program area spans 12.3 million hectares with 9.2 million hectares of forest cover over the Mai-Ndombe region. The 2-day launch event brought together over 250 representatives from government, private sector, civil society, and local communities from across the 8 territories in the Mai Ndombe program jurisdiction.
Together the Vice-Governor of the Province Mr. Alexis Kiala and Assistant Director of the Cabinet Mr. Joseph Balondo, representing the Minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development, opened the launch event. Following were a series of sessions to introduce the objectives of the program, community investments it will support, involvement of the private sector, and finally, the tools and mechanisms that will be used in the program.
A range of 23 stakeholders signed a memorandum of understanding to ensure broad support for the current process and transparent and participatory finalization of the program document.
During the event, the Vice-Governor of the Province Mr. Alexis Kiala affirmed the full support of all the institutions acting in the jurisdiction and called for the strong support of all stakeholders. The Assistant Director of the Cabinet Mr. Joseph Balondo echoed support for the program and shared the hope that the workshops would contribute to making progress and facilitate the development of strategies which mobilize concrete action to bring the program alive. An Indigenous Peoples representative highlighted the role if Indigenous Peoples in program preparation and implementation. And, community leaders made proposals to work effectively with their communities to shift agricultural production to savanna lands.
The Mai-Ndombe Emission Reductions Program aims to establish a model of a green development program that provides alternatives to deforestation and rewards the efforts that address the challenges of climate change, poverty reduction, protection of natural resources and biodiversity. The main drivers of deforestation and forest degradation are slash-and-burn agriculture and charcoal production, combined with the exploitation of the forest by industry. Working with forestry companies, and forest and mining concessions, as well as communities and cross-sectoral policy stakeholders, the program will take on activities with a holistic approach to sustainable land use that promote rural development and reduce pressure to cut down the forest in line with the national REDD+ strategy.
With the launch of the program underway, the next step in the process of program development is for the National REDD Coordination team to present the program document to the Carbon Fund Participant of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility in October 2015. The DRC is one of 11 countries with large-scale emission reductions programs in the pipeline of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility Carbon Fund. The DRC is currently also undertaking a participatory multi-stakeholder self-assessment of its readiness progress. This process will help the country to assess progress and achievements, as well as remaining gaps for the way forward to transitioning from readiness to the implementation of performance-based activities.