* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Experience in the Republic of the Congo shows how funds to communities could be effectively distributed
We know that benefit sharing is a crucial component of forest protection effort REDD+. But do these schemes really work on the ground? When the EU REDD Facility looked at the situation in villages in the Republic of the Congo, we found that funds released by forest companies for local economic development weren’t always reaching villagers.
Many had been waiting years for the money to buy basics like water pumps, fishing equipment and farming supplies. The cause is not bad policy. The Republic of the Congo has laws and arrangements for benefit sharing for forestry and other sectors. The problem is that funds earmarked for local development projects get lost because of weak governance capacity and poor project management.
We’ve been working with local stakeholders to pinpoint where bottlenecks occur. Together, we’ve used this new knowledge to develop a set of project management tools and legal text proposals to improve fund distribution.
Our project ‘Drawing on experience to develop REDD+ benefit sharing’ was based in the Republic of the Congo’s Likouala and Sangha departments, which are covered in tropical rainforest and home to one of the world's largest populations of western lowland gorillas.
But the remote communities in these departments are impoverished, and local institutions lack the capacity to channel forestry revenues into projects that benefit local residents. We worked with Brice Baketiba, a rural development engineer, to investigate fund distribution models in the country’s northern departments.
Brice helped conduct analysis and testing with communities to find out what their needs are and how fund distribution systems can be improved. He says villages were facing the same kinds of problems.
“The money was not reaching the beneficiaries, the projects were badly designed, or there was no proper monitoring,” he says. “We noticed that the beneficiaries, the local communities, wanted to be involved and became really committed.”
The Congolese system of forest revenue distribution to local communities is relatively advanced compared with others in Africa. This is because forestry companies who hold logging concessions are legally obliged to support community livelihood projects through local development funds.
Communities can use these funds to buy inputs to grow crops and raise livestock, and to provide better health services and clean water supplies. But a lack of experience and technical and human capacity in local institutions has been an impediment to effective distribution.
With the close involvement of communities, forest companies and the government, we’ve developed tools to improve the management of local development funds and ensure better project accounting, monitoring and evaluation. Our approach has been to fine-tune the system rather than develop a new benefit distribution model from scratch. This is because existing local knowledge is a valuable resource in developing mechanisms that are suited to local needs.
Importantly, we’ve also been working with local stakeholders to develop legal text proposals to ensure that fund management activities are clear and accountable. This means that the government can draw on first-hand stakeholder experience for its ongoing revision of the Forest Code and in drafting new implementation decrees for the Code.
A clearer and stronger legal framework will also help bolster other forest governance initiatives such as the European Union's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan, and help forest concession holders comply with the legal framework in place. Through the Republic of the Congo-European Union Voluntary Partnership Agreement, concession holders will be better equipped to comply with regulations to ensure that only legally produced timber is exported from the Republic of the Congo to the European Union.
The tools and legal text proposals that were developed help lay the groundwork for REDD+ benefit sharing in the country. The work is used in the development of the National REDD+ Strategy and the World Bank's FCPF Emissions Reduction Programme.
Brice says that the tools and recommendations will lead to increased efficiency at a lower cost. He agrees with us that the model could be adapted to future REDD+ benefit sharing initiatives in other African countries.
(The EU REDD Facility was established in 2010 and is hosted by the European Forest Institute. The Facility supports EU efforts to address the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, and foster sustainable forest management in developing countries. The Facility has its headquarters in Barcelona, and offices in Brussels, Joensuu and Kuala Lumpur.)
