ATTACHMENT_15_-_Regional_Dev_Coop_Strategy.pdf

USAID/Central Africa Regional

Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE)

Regional Development Cooperation Strategy

2012-2020

Accelerating Central Africa’s transition to climate-resilient, low emissions development through sustainable management of biodiverse forests

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACRONYM LIST .......................................................................................................................... iii

I. Development Challenges and Opportunities

Context

Regional and Country Context

Emerging Trends and Issues

II. Program Goal and Development Objective

A. Overall Goal

B. Development Objective

Linking Development Objective to the Goal

Responding to identified challenges and opportunities

The General Development Hypothesis

Technical Approach

Geographic Focus and Target Beneficiaries

Gender Integration

Supporting Indigenous Populations

Informing Selection of the Development Objective

Aid Effectiveness and Sustainable Local Capacity Building

Working with Other Development Partners

Working with Other U.S agencies

Critical Assumptions

C. The Results Framework: Intermediate Results, Causal Logic, and Hypotheses

III. Monitoring and Evaluation

Existing Monitoring and Evaluation System

Toward a New Performance Management System

Impact Evaluation

IV. USAID FORWARD

Appendix 1: Congo Basin Forest Partnership Large-Scale Forest Management Landscape

Appendix 2: Detailed Results Framework i

Appendix 3: Resource Documents ii

ACRONYM LIST

AAAS: American Association for Advancement of Science ADB: African Development Bank AFD Agence Française de Développement CAR: Central Africa Regional CARPE: Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment CAWHEI: Central African World Heritage Forest Initiative CBFP: Congo Basin Forest Partnership CBJ: Congressional Budget Justification CBNRM: Community-Based Natural Resource Management CCI: Climate Change Initiative CIDA: Canadian International Development Agency COMIFAC: Commission des Forêts d’Afrique Centrale (Central African Forests Commission) COP: Conference of the Parties CSR: Corporate social responsibility DFID (UK): Department for International Development (United Kingdom) DGIS: Netherland Directorate General for International Cooperation DO: Development Objective DRC: Democratic Republic of Congo ECOFAC: Ecosystèmes Forestiers d’Afrique Centrale EPT: Epidemic Pandemic Threats FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization FFEM: Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial FIP: Forest Investment Program FLEGT: Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade FY: Fiscal Year GCC: Global Climate Change GDP: Gross Domestic Product GEF: Global Environment Facility GHG: Greenhouse Gas GIS: Geographic Information System GIZ: German Society for International Cooperation ICASS: International Cooperative Administrative Support IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IR: Intermediate Results ITTO: International Tropical Timber Organization IUCN: International Union for Conservation of Nature JICA: Japan International Cooperation Agency LEDS: Low Emission Development Strategy LES: Locally Employed Staff M&E: Monitoring and Evaluation MRV: Measurement, Reporting and Verification iii

NASA: National Agency for Space and Aeronautics NGO: Non-Governmental Organization NRM: Natural Resources Management OSFAC: Observatoire des Forêts d’Afrique Centrale (Central Africa Forest Satellite

Observatory)

conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks

iv

Regional Development Cooperation Strategy

USAID/Central Africa Regional Program

2012-2020

I. Development Challenges and Opportunities

Context More than 80 million people depend on Central Africa’s rich forests and associated natural resources for their livelihoods. In addition to satisfying these immediate needs, the forest ecosystem provides services such as global climate regulation and a reservoir for unique and globally important biodiversity resources. However, despite the richness of the Congo Basin, the people of the Basin are among the poorest in Africa. The challenge facing regional governments, the global community and citizens of the Congo Basin alike is to strike a balance in the management of these natural resources to satisfy current needs while protecting and conserving the resource base for future generations. The prospect of new and emerging financing through partnerships opens a new avenue to sustain the ecological integrity of the Congo Basin.

The Central Africa Regional Program was established as a unique USAID/Central Africa Regional Operating Unit (OU) in 2003 to ensure unambiguous visible support for the USG commitment to the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP), an initiative announced at the International Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002. USAID then greatly expanded the Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) as the OU’s sole program to provide significant new financial and technical resources to this international initiative to conserve the planet’s second largest tropical rainforest and its threatened biodiversity. CARPE has assembled a large network of implementing partners including a large number of international conservation NGOs and federal agencies which count among them the Department of Interior (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S. Geological Service), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S. Forest Service, Foreign Agricultural Service).

The CARPE Strategic Plan set forth an ambitious set of objectives for the period 2003-2011. A mid term evaluation in 2005-06 allowed USAID to consolidate and refine program activities and tactics while an External Evaluation completed in 2011 assessed progress against the stated goals and objectives. Among other findings, the External Evaluation concluded that CARPE had been extraordinarily successful in introducing large-scale ecosystem management approaches through the “landscape program” and recommended that CARPE should be refined and continued through 2020 with greater focus on policy reform to support sustainable forest management systems and to more directly support local communities’ clear access rights to forest resources and associated ecosystems services payments. The evaluation report recommended that a third phase be designed by USAID to consolidate and capitalize on the substantial investments and achievements. The report defined a series of steps USAID could take to more explicitly incorporate and support the evolving Global Climate Change policies surrounding the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks

(REDD+).

A great deal has been accomplished since the launching of the CBFP. A massive landscape management system has been introduced which is improving the management of over 50 million hectares of fragile and highly sensitive tropical forest throughout seven Central African countries. Tens of thousands of individuals have been trained from government, local and international NGOs and communities in a variety of conservation methods and techniques. USAID through CARPE has created a system to measure, track and verify deforestation through satellite remote sensing, and has “stood up” a regional African organization based in Kinshasa, DRC which is capable of analyzing satellite remote sensing data, training experts in the region and disseminating satellite-derived products to all users.

National civil society has been trained and motivated to work hand-in-hand with local communities, governments and the international community to educate and organize local groups to play an active role in forest and biodiversity conservation programs. Over five million hectares of logging concessions have been certified in compliance with international norms. The Central African Forests Commission (COMIFAC), was established in 2000 as a 10-country treaty organization to harmonize regional policies on forestry and biodiversity conservation. The Executive Secretariat includes a Climate Change Working Group with the objective of strengthening and unifying regional policies and approaches aimed toward sustainable landscape climate change mitigation measures. The international community has responded to the CBFP and the COMIFAC convergence plan by greatly increasing funding and technical support for forest and biodiversity conservation in the region.

Even though impressive progress toward the capacity to manage these tropical forests has been realized over the past eight years, substantial management and governance questions remain if these vast tropical forests are to be maintained as one of the globe’s largest terrestrial carbon stocks and reservoir of the most spectacular and rare biodiversity on the planet. Thus, this RDCS offers the opportunity to build on these considerable assets to launch a vigorous new program as a springboard for the Global Climate Change Presidential Initiative in Sustainable Landscape management.

Regional and Country Context The Central African countries tend to be politically centralized yet inefficiently administered and economically weak. Authority over forest management is often in the hands of a few powerful politicians and private sector actors. Until recently, civil society advocacy was weak or non-existent in many Central African countries, forest administrations ineffectual, understaffed and without the capacity to use modern technology such as information tools for forest management. These conditions are beginning to change, thanks in part to strong and consistent USG policy and capacity-building efforts over the past eight years. USG efforts have been strongly supported by intense interest in the conservation of the forests amongst the international community, initially inspired by the CBFP and more recently by the global threat posed by climate change.

With a sharpened strategic focus, USAID/CAR proposes that this RDCS (CARPE Phase III) restrict its program to the six principal forested countries of Central Africa: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo and to continue support for the coordination of the Greater Virunga Landscape of DRC, Uganda and Rwanda. Chad, Burundi, Rwanda and Sao Tome Principe, though members of COMIFAC, do not contain significant dense humid tropical forest area and therefore are not proposed for Phase III. Although improving natural resources governance is an important strategy for sustainable development throughout the region, focusing on the six rainforest countries will allow the OU to concentrate its resources on similar problems, to support similar monitoring and evaluation systems, to apply standard scientific methods over similar forest resources and to maximize impact with the resources available to the program.

The six Central African countries with the majority of the dense humid tropical forest, while similar in ecology, manifest stark differences related to their colonial histories, post-colonial governance pathways, revenue sources, legal frameworks and institutional capacities. They all generally can be characterized as having poor economic governance, weak institutions, low human resource capability, underdeveloped civil societies, poor educational systems, low human health indicators and generally poor economic performance. Two of the countries (Equatorial Guinea and Gabon) are considered “middle income” countries based on per capita GDP from mainly petroleum-based extractive industries.

Equatorial Guinea, however, has only recently exploited petroleum and is a relative newcomer to the middle-income ranks, whereas Gabon, despite 40 years of rising income has created strikingly little institutional capacity to manage its natural resource wealth until quite recently.

Most of these forested countries have suffered violent conflict and unstable governments since independence. All are at the low end of the World Bank’s rankings for the ease of doing business and the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. They have been slowly “decapitalizing” for decades, as evidenced by deteriorated physical infrastructure, dilapidated educational facilities, worsening health conditions, capital flight, “brain drain” and rising corruption. The USG official presence is modest; the DRC the only country with a USAID mission. The USAID/DRC mission is focused on consolidating stability and recovery from a long period of misrule, war and continued violent conflict, particularly in the eastern regions. It is investing in social services such as basic education and public health as well as democratic governance, but it has only recently started programs in the economic growth area. The USG priorities in the five non-USAID presence countries are to improve governance, democracy and the rule of law. Improved natural resources governance is a very important subset of these priorities. Given that most of the regional wealth is derived from either extracting non renewable resources such as minerals and petroleum or in “renewable resources” such as timber and hydroelectric power, governance is fundamentally a question of the equitable and transparent management of this wealth for both current and future generations. Ultimately economic growth and poverty alleviation are dependent on the effective and sustainable use and sound management of natural resources. Therefore, sustainable and sound natural resource management is requisite for creating the fundamental conditions for Central African sustainable economic development. In fact, environmental protection and climate change are USG priorities for the regional states, reflected by Gabon being selected by the United States as the first African country to receive support for a Low Emissions Development Strategy (LEDS).

Table 1. Key Indicator Country Matrix

CARPE

Phase III

CARPE

Phase II

CBFP USAID

Presence

GDP per capita1

Population in million.

(Annual growth rate)

Corruption index (TI) rank of 178

Human Develop ment Index of 169

Freedom House Index 2010 (1- 7)

Burundi X X $160 8.3 (3%) 170 166 Partly free (4.5)

Cameroon X X X $1,136 19.5 (2.2%) 146 111 Not Free (6.0)

Central African Republic

X X X $454 4.4 (1.9%) 154 159 Partly free (5.0)

Chad X $610 11.2 (2.6%) 171 163 Not Free (6.5)

Democratic Republic of the Congo

X X X X $160 66.0 (2.7%) 164 168 Not Free (6.0)

Equatorial Guinea

X X X $15,397 0.7 (2.6%) 168 117 Not Free (7.0)

Gabon X X X $7,502 1.5 (1.8%) 110 93 Not Free2

(5.5)

Republic of the Congo

X X X $2,601 3.7 (1.9%) 154 126 Not Free (5.5)

Rwanda X X X $506 10.0 (2.8%) 66 152 Not Free (5.5)

Sao Tomé & Principe

X X $1,184 0.2 (1.6%) 101 127 Free

Against this bleak assessment of government and human capacity are some hopeful developments, some of which can be traced directly to USG efforts. Because natural resources play a dominant role in the lives of average Central African citizens, civil society has been emerging around the issues of natural resource conservation and the use of natural wealth for poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

Thanks to the OU’s consistent effort in building local capacity, the threshold has now been crossed for civil society to play a meaningful role with governments and the donor community alike in providing a voice for national and local decision-making. Growing civil society will provide an important platform for the implementation of the RDCS at regional, national and local levels.

1 Data related to country GDP and population come from the World Bank website “www.worldbank.org”.

2 According to the U.S. embassy in Gabon, the 2010 Freedom House Index was based on a report done in 2008 and the Index is being updated to reflect the improvement that Gabon has achieved in recent years.

Since its launching in 2003, the OU has rapidly advanced regional and national conservation policies and approaches, especially through the establishment of management plans created through intensive participatory processes in and across 12 forest landscapes in seven countries. Forest conservation planning across multiple countries not only advances comprehensive regional conservation strategies, but also supports peace building and other cooperative efforts between and among Central Africa states.

These vast forest landscapes were selected by the CBFP for their important biodiversity resources and relatively intact forest cover through a scientific and participatory process, but they also serve as fundamental livelihood sources for millions of local people. Furthermore, the landscapes sequester massive carbon stocks that if unprotected would be destroyed and degraded, releasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, accelerating global climate change.

Because the legal system of most of the Central Africa states rests principally on Francophone colonial traditions, all forests, water, minerals – and, in fact, all natural resources – are the legal domain of the national governments. Weak state management of these resources creates a vacuum where local populations are often stripped of benefits as stronger or elite groups including private companies expropriate natural resources at sub-national and local levels. One of the major issues concerning resource access and land tenure is the disparity between modern legal systems and customary laws regarding land ownership. In general, traditional land rights are granted through inheritance, and are centered on communal access to resources; statutory laws encourage state and private ownership, with the emphasis on commercial production rather than on household production. Conflict arising from differences between customary and statutory law leads to disputes over access to resources and precipitates long-term negative impact on the environment which further negatively impacts the livelihood security of local communities resulting in even further cycles of environmental degradation.

Weakening of traditional access via state control, migration and social change is evident in many communities, resulting in unsustainable harvesting of wildlife, rapid forest clearing for shifting agriculture, and weakening local community management of forest resources.

The international partnership approach pioneered by the CBFP has drawn important political support from Central African governments through COMIFAC and increased national attention to sustainable forest management. Effective, efficient and equitable forest management strategies will ultimately rely on a combination of national and regional policy frameworks that increase transparency and enable empowered participation of local communities and private actors. Independent monitoring systems are needed that can objectively verify and inform resource management decisions to obtain the ultimate long-term goal of sustainable environmental management, maintenance of important biodiversity resources, and the stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions emanating from forest destruction and degradation. The measures being proposed by the RDCS are highly integrated and comprehensive and build from the investment and successes of Phase I and II. They aim to deepen and institutionalize the sustainable management of the Central African tropical forest ecosystem with hands-on management of large-scale landscapes; reform policies, laws and regulations at both the national and regional level to support forest conservation; build capacity at all levels for generating and using evidence-based, scientific information for decision-making; and to design and implement supportive institutional planning and management support systems. Executing such a complex strategy requires strong donor collaboration, the mobilization of a vast number of institutional actors from the region and beyond and long-term commitment and vision. The USG can only be successful in this effort through strong coordination with the increasing number of actors, an effort which must be reinforced with direct support from the U.S. embassies in the region.

Emerging Trends and Issues Deforestation, forest degradation and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with these phenomena have been and remain strongly associated with demographic change in Central Africa. The general lack of economic alternatives for forest dwellers and the expected doubling of population in Central Africa over the next 20 years create great pressure to clear forests for swidden and commercial agriculture.

Concurrently, growing urban populations that depend almost exclusively on carbonized wood for fuel exert strong pressures on natural forests as a source of domestic energy. Planning for these demographic and economic pressures at local, national and regional scales is essential to mitigate negative environmental impacts, particularly deforestation and biodiversity loss. Technological solutions are available for many of these forest land use challenges but are not well known or available to local communities. Many communities have been forced into unsustainable resource use patterns, given that their livelihood alternatives are limited in the face of economic collapse, poorly organized and uncompetitive agricultural markets, and the sheer isolation of large populations living in remote forest areas. These threats can be addressed through small-scale agricultural technological improvements, domestic fuel wood production as a short-to-medium-term energy substitute to natural forest biomass, community benefit-sharing from ecosystems services payments through the model of REDD+ being developed through the discussion of the UNFCCC and related actions.

A second category of “external threats” to the forest ecosystems of Central Africa is beginning to emerge. Global demand for food, fiber, minerals, petroleum and other natural resources is growing.

Industrial logging has long resulted in serious negative environmental consequences when not appropriately managed. This threat is now being partially mitigated through market incentives and access as some importing countries are imposing stringent environmental and legal requirements on tropical timber. The European Union through the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) and the United States through the Lacey Act, for example, require that tropical timber products imported into those countries be legally harvested. Forest certification is being widely introduced in Central Africa and the OU has worked in consortium with the national governments, COMIFAC and the CBFP members including the private sector to introduce industrial logging monitoring and tracking systems.

To date, large-scale conversion of tropical forests for agricultural purposes has not emerged in Central Africa as in the Amazon and Asia, though foreign investors are demonstrating a growing interest in palm oil and other industrial agriculture throughout the region. Among the first announced is a large oil-palm investment by an Asian company in Gabon. Given international economic conditions and the projected global food demand, it is likely that these pressures will mount over the next several years.

Additionally, large mining and petroleum exploration have been announced recently in many of the

Central African countries. Several large foreign iron and diamond mining investments have been announced for the TRIDOM landscape, for example, in the area where the borders of Gabon, Republic of Congo and Cameroon meet. These are remote locations harboring some of the most spectacular endemic wildlife in Africa. The growing, large-scale investments of companies from China and other Asian countries, particularly in resource extraction, are an important emerging challenge for environmental protection. Given the paucity of market incentives to maintain environmental standards for products entering Asian markets, more vigorous enforcement and regulatory efforts will be needed than for western markets and companies.

While these large investments certainly are inherent potential threats to the forest and its biodiversity, public-private partnerships may play a mitigating role. For example, private investors accessing banks adhering to the Equator Principles (accessing capital from the 50 or so largest public and private investment banks in the world) have strong biodiversity obligations. Even for those investors not subject to Equator Principles, the OU may be able to influence their commitment to biodiversity conservation. These potentially positive biodiversity investments could either be business-oriented (to generate revenue for conservation); mitigation related; or supportive of corporate social responsibility (CSR) requirements. Several important international investors have designated reforestation, charcoal mitigation and biodiversity conservation as core environmental mitigation and obligations—but they lack expertise to carry out their commitments. CARPE implementing partners have assisted a number of logging and mining companies in the extractive resource zones in the landscapes to develop and implement plans for mitigating the threats to biodiversity. One of them is currently working with a large Swiss firm to establish biodiversity offsets for a proposed iron mine in the Bateke Plateau in the Republic of Congo. Given the governance challenges facing responsible private sector investors in the CARPE countries, a potential window for public-private partnerships appears to be an opportunity to further CARPE objectives as well as collaboration with USAID-supported Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program and perhaps other ongoing or emerging initiatives.

II. Program Goal and Development Objective

A. Overall Goal

The Goal Statement for this RDCS is: “Central Africa’s transition to climate-resilient, low-emissions development accelerated through sustainable management of biodiverse forests.”

This Goal supports the U.S. Government’s priority in conserving the tropical forests and their biodiversity and the President’s Global Climate Change Initiative in promoting sustainable landscape management to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).

In addition to aligning with USAID Climate Change and Development Strategy, the Goal also supports the CBFP objectives to promote economic development, poverty alleviation, improved governance, and natural resources conservation in Central Africa. It responds to the growing global and national interest in REDD+ and the concerns over biodiversity loss in this region. Central Africa nations have strongly shared USG objectives in climate change and conservation of forest and biodiversity. The DRC has emerged as a regional and international leader with its REDD+ program and has been selected as a pilot country for the World Bank’s Forest Investment Program (FIP). All of the six forested Central African countries as well as the COMIFAC have announced their support for the REDD+ initiative and are in various stages of developing REDD+ Readiness Plans. Gabon is receiving USG’s assistance to design a low emission development strategy (LEDS).

The Goal also supports the explicit commitment of the Central African countries to protect the Congo Basin's ecosystems as an integral component of the development process. The COMIFAC Convergence Plan is endorsed by all ten member countries and the broader CBFP membership, with the objectives of promoting the sustainable use of the Congo ecosystem in accordance with their social, economic, and environmental priorities. Central African Republic (CAR), the Republic of Congo (ROC) and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) created the Sangha Tri-national trans-boundary forest complex.

The ROC and DRC have signed a trans-boundary agreement the implementation which will reinforce the management of the largest RAMSAR site in the world. Uganda, Rwanda and DRC are ready to sign a Treaty for conserving biodiversity across the Greater Virunga Landscape. Equatorial Guinea and Gabon have issued decrees to ban export of raw logs. ROC, Cameroon and CAR have signed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with EU for legal logging certification system. The ROC will host the summit of the heads of states of the Congo, Amazon and Borneo-Mekong Basins in Brazzaville in June 2011.

This Goal is measurable. Science-based methodologies and tools have been developed to measure the greenhouse gas emissions from the forest and the methodologies for surveys of keystone biodiversity species in CARPE landscapes have proven reliable.

B. Development Objective

The Operating Unit has specified only one development objective for this RDCS, “the ecological integrity of the humid forest ecosystem of the Congo Basin maintained.”

This Development Objective will be reached through the achievement of four Intermediate Results (IR):

(1) Targeted forest landscapes sustainably managed; (2) Biodiversity threats in targeted forest landscapes mitigated; (3) Policy and regulatory environments supporting sustainable forest and biodiversity conservation established; and (4) Capacity to monitor forest cover change, greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity strengthened.

Linking Development Objective to the Goal The causal relationship between the Development Objective (DO) and the Goal is based on the following hypothesis: maintaining a healthy forest ecosystem through sustainable natural resource management stabilizes greenhouse gas emissions by reducing deforestation and forest degradation, thereby mitigating climate change, conserving biodiversity and enhancing ecosystems services and benefits such as improved livelihoods. The DO conservation and global climate change activities will focus on 12 CBFP tropical forest landscapes located across six Central African countries. Policy development and monitoring systems will contribute directly to the achievement of the DO and ultimately to the Goal for the entire Congo Basin forested region. Major policy issues to be addressed will include: (1) harmonization the forestry policies in the region; (2) national and local policies for CBNRM, resource access rights, ownership and tenure of forests and their resources; and (3) integration of gender equality and indigenous people’s rights in national and local policies. Constraints to the implementation or enforcement of the conservation policies and laws will also be addressed. The fact that the forests in the 12 targeted landscapes account for over 70 percent of the dense humid tropical forests in the Congo Basin directly links DO-level progress to Goal achievement.

Responding to identified challenges and opportunities This DO directly responds to the opportunities created by the President’s Global Climate Change Initiative Sustainable Landscape pillar. Promoting sustainable landscape management will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from avoided deforestation and reduced forest degradation and further sequester carbon from the atmosphere. International donors, including the United States, are committed through the UNFCCC process to support Central African countries to participate in REDD+ programs.

The USAID/CAR program signifies strong support to this international process. The DO also takes advantage of the achievements of past CARPE investments in building regional, national and local capacity in land use planning, sustainable natural resource management, forest monitoring systems, the growth of capable local civil society and communities involved in conservation of natural resources, the improvement of the policy and regulatory environment, and the increasing political stability and security in the region.

The DO directly addresses a fundamental source of greenhouse gas emissions; deforestation and forest degradation, the major threats to the regional and global environment. The current deforestation and forest degradation in Central Africa is currently the result of unsustainable natural resource management practices at community level as opposed to other tropical forest regions where large-scale forest land conversion for commercial agriculture, logging, mining and alternative forest uses are advancing more rapidly. These external forces are expected to increasingly affect Central Africa over the next eight years.

Governments at all levels and local communities have multiple and serious capacity constraints that impede sustainable NRM. Weak institutional and human capacity combined with the still inadequate policy and regulatory frameworks also constrain effective involvement of local communities in forest management. Particularly severe policy constraints associated with the highly controversial question of land and natural resource “ownership”, tenure and access rights were identified in the CARPE II External Evaluation. The landscape approach promoted through CARPE II and the national-level land use planning process are proving effective and efficient in addressing the principal driver of current deforestation. However, this land use management process also proactively establishes the enabling environment for addressing future “threats”, including capacity building to address potential challenges of large-scale forest land conversions or by the changing mix of the deforestation drivers.

Deforestation and forest degradation also lead to a concomitant loss of biodiversity – species, genetic resources, and ecological processes and services – and proper NRM practices directly support their protection.3 These biotic resources underpin Central African livelihoods of today and can contribute to the sustainable development of the region. Africa’s important biological resources -- its crops, livestock, fisheries, wildlife and forests -- yield income, food, fiber, and fuel that the population needs, and provide the exports and jobs that are the bedrock for broad-based, equitable sustainable growth. For those living in the region, the most fundamental value of biodiversity is its integral role in the vitality and resiliency of the ecosystem upon which their livelihood depends. The rainforests of Central Africa form one of the planet’s last great tropical wilderness areas with thousands of endemic plant and animal species and the world’s largest populations of lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees), and forest elephants. The loss of biodiversity would clearly threaten Central Africa’s long-term development. In addition to deforestation and forest degradation, illegal hunting, commercial bushmeat trade and large-scale logging are major threats to biodiversity. CARPE III will support the mitigation of these threats through: (1) implementation of land use management plans for macro- and micro-zones, which include biodiversity conservation activities based on threat analyses; (2) promotion of sustainable community-based forest and wildlife management; and (3) strengthening the government capacity to monitor logging concessions and bushmeat trade and to enforce forest and wildlife laws.

The OU will address the identified weaknesses of Central African states’ legal systems that hinder the implementation of sustainable NRM and the active participation of local communities in conservation by promoting legal and social systems that strengthen land and resource rights for rural peoples, improve national and regional governance and enhance political stability. Complementary activities build the capacity of civil society and communities to participate in natural resource decisions that affect their present and future livelihood opportunities. Comprehensive monitoring of forest and biodiversity resources will inform management and policy decisions. CARPE will actively promote the rights of women, indigenous peoples and other disadvantaged groups over natural resources in all program components. The program’s regional nature requires strong coordination with a variety of stakeholders including individual U.S. embassies, national governments, the private sector, other donors, scientific and technical organizations and non-governmental organizations.

Deforestation, forest degradation and loss of biodiversity have a negative impact on the livelihood of millions of people living inside and outside the forests. Data obtained from GIS technologies and biodiversity surveys demonstrate that CARPE has significantly reduced the primary forest loss and either stabilized or increased keystone species in a majority of sites. Thus, without USAID investment, the rate of deforestation and loss of biodiversity in the Congo Basin will accelerate and exacerbate poverty and poor economic conditions in the region. The "development trajectory" may not be

3 “Forest degradation” as defined by UN Convention on Biodiversity: “A degraded forest is a secondary forest that has lost, through human activities, the structure, function, species composition or productivity normally associated with a natural forest type expected on that site. Hence, a degraded forest delivers a reduced supply of goods and services from the given site and maintains only limited biological diversity. Biological diversity of degraded forests includes many non-tree components, which may dominate in the under-canopy vegetation.”

immediately affected with respect to rates of economic growth, but the long-term economic viability of the region will be severely compromised with the degradation of the forest ecosystem.

The General Development Hypothesis The development hypothesis for the RDCS posits that: (1) if sustainable and sound natural resource management stabilizes deforestation and forest degradation and mitigates threats to biodiversity in the targeted landscapes, the greenhouse gas emissions from the forests will be stabilized to conform to “reference scenarios,” and “keystone” biodiversity species will be conserved in these landscapes; and (2) if CARPE succeeds in achieving the results envisaged through building sustainable landscape management capacity, an enabling policy and regulatory environment, systems for monitoring forests, GHG emissions and biodiversity, then the ecological integrity of the humid forest ecosystem of the Congo Basin will be maintained. In summary: increased capacity at the regional, national and local levels together with a strengthened enabling policy environment will lead to large scale greenhouse gas emission abatement, the conservation of biodiversity and the ability of regional countries to transition from environmental degradation and poverty to climate resiliency and low emissions.

Tropical deforestation worldwide is a major contributor to emissions of greenhouse gases, accounting for at least 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and totals are higher if additional emissions from subsequent land use are counted. According to the UNFCCC, avoiding deforestation must play a central role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, thereby mitigating global climate change. While deforestation and forest degradation in the Congo Basin cannot be completely arrested given already alarming demographic and technological trends in the region, effective forest management will substantially stabilize emissions of greenhouse gases from deforestation and degradation. Maintaining intact forests will also provide many other ecosystems benefits such as biodiversity habitat, non-timber forest products, tourism, water sources and economic opportunities for the burgeoning populations of Central Africa. Implementation of sustainable land use management plans that include biodiversity conservation activities and mitigation of threats to biodiversity will contribute to the maintenance of the ecological integrity of the humid forest ecosystem of the Congo Basin.

The principal means of achieving the Development Objective (DO) is to strengthen institutional and human capacity at the regional, national and local level. Institutions to monitor and manage the conservation and use of forest resources and to inventory, observe and report on greenhouse gas emissions will be strengthened, and specific policy and regulatory reform will be promoted to favor greenhouse gas emission reduction in conjunction with more intensive and direct ground-level conservation programs. These achievements will establish enabling conditions for the nationwide and regional adoption of sustainable landscape strategies for forest areas beyond the 12 targeted landscapes.

Technical Approach The program under this Development Objective will employ the landscape management approach proven successful in CARPE II as underscored in the CARPE II Final Evaluation and formally endorsed by the CBFP and COMIFAC. This approach recognizes that the success of forest and biodiversity conservation cannot rely on protected areas alone. It engages all of the key stakeholders in the spatial planning processes which lead to the consensual management of the landscape according to three general categories of “macro-zones” -- protected areas, extractive resource zones, and community-based natural resource management zones. These macro-zones are then managed to minimize deforestation, forest degradation and biodiversity loss consistent with local needs and national/regional priorities.4 The planning guides developed by CARPE for each category of macro-zones will continue to be major tools for managing these vast areas of tropical forest.

CARPE will institutionalize these methodologies through training and technical assistance using a participatory approach to: (1) strengthen local, national and regional capacity in land use planning, forest management and biodiversity conservation at the landscape as well as macro-zone levels; (2) strengthen institutional capacity at the regional, national and local levels for natural resource monitoring and climate change mitigation; (3) improve the policy and regulatory environment, including enforcement through criminal prosecutions for natural resource management and climate change mitigation, and (4) improve local and national government capacity to use and institutionalize the information generated through CARPE for decision making.

The selection of the four intermediate results recognizes the major obstacles to the effective implementation of sustainable natural resource management, which when corrected will contribute to the achievement of the Development Objective. These obstacles are: (1) weak technical and organizational capacity; (2) lack or incomplete/inadequate legal framework or failure to implement policies/laws that create incentives to empower the communities to access and manage natural resources; (3) problems related to access rights, ownership and tenure of forests and their resources; (4) weak capacity of the judiciary systems to effectively regulate and enforce laws; and (5) lack of reliable information for decision making and resource monitoring.

Geographic Focus and Target Beneficiaries This DO will focus on the 12 large tropical forest landscapes in the six forested Central African countries. These carbon-rich, biologically sensitive and diverse landscapes comprise more than 80 million hectares of critically important tropical forest in Central Africa (See Appendix 3 map). They have been selected on the basis of their international biodiversity value, the relatively rich carbon content of the forests, the large USG investment already made over the life of CARPE II in management planning with partner institutions (including the private sector), investments made in strengthening local community institutions, and through lessons learned in CARPE II (documented in the Final External Evaluation) of proven and cost-effective techniques and technologies that have the power to change behavior to less destructive environmental practices. These landscapes together comprise more than 70% of the total Congo Basin forest and therefore offer ample opportunity to achieve multiple objectives through sustainable landscape management. These areas are listed below.

4 Detailed information on the CARPE Landscape Planning and Management approach and its effectiveness can be found on the CARPE website http://carpe.umd.edu/.

1. Monte Alen - Mont de Cristal Inselbergs Forest Landscape: Mt. Seni and Mbé (Gabon and Equatorial Guinea)

2. Gamba - Conkouati Forest Landscape: Loango / Moukalaba-Doudou / Mayumba / Conkouati (Gabon, Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo)

Ivindo / Odzala (Cameroon, Congo and Gabon)

5. Sangha Tri-national Forest Landscape: Dzanga Sangha / Nouabale Ndoki / Lobeke (Cameroon, Congo and Central African Republic)

6. Lac Tele - Lac Tumba Swamp Forest Landscape: Lac Tele / Lac Tumba (Congo and Democratic

Republic of Congo)

of Congo)

9. Salonga - Lukenie - Sankuru Forest Landscape: Salonga (Democratic Republic of Congo)

10. Maiko - Lutunguru Tayna - Kahuzi Biega Forest Landscape: Maiko / Kahuzi - Biega

(Democratic Republic of Congo)

11. Ituri - Epulu - Aru Forest Landscape: Okapi (Democratic Republic of Congo).

12. Greater Virunga Forest Landscape; Virungas (Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Rwanda)

The program implemented under this strategy will benefit the people and the governments of the region.

Direct beneficiaries include millions of people whose social and economic wellbeing depend on the forests in the Congo Basin. Special consideration will be given to women and indigenous people through methods and procedures described elsewhere in this RDCS. The government agencies and NGOs in the region will also benefit through actions that will strengthen their capacity in natural resource management, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Through its landscape approach and participatory land use planning process, the program will foster transnational cooperation and regional stability and security – both of which are critical factors for sustainable economic development.

The program also benefits U.S. citizens and the global community through its impacts on global climate change and biodiversity conservation. The participatory approach practiced by CARPE draws on best practices associated with democracy, good governance and conflict mitigation/resolution. In the land use and management planning, democracy, governance and conflict issues are always taken into consideration.

Gender Integration Progress has been made in addressing the gender issues under the current phase with the increased participation and integration of women in CARPE activities. The CARPE gender strategy entitled “Engendering CARPE” provides a type of “roadmap” for gender integration into all CARPE partner activities. The process actively fosters the participation of women in resource access and management decision making, which experience has demonstrated increases household well-being. COMIFAC has integrated gender equality in its Plan of Convergence. Last year, women accounted for over 30 percent of the people trained by CARPE in natural resource management and many of them benefited from literacy training and alternative livelihood actions. Under Phase III, CARPE will expand its efforts in promoting gender equity through:

• Creating more opportunities and incentives for women to actively participate in capacity building activities and in managing community-based natural resources;

• Promoting policies that increase women’s rights over to access to forest and wildlife resources, land tenure and property ownership;

• Facilitating women’s access to alternative livelihood activities, especially women who are affected by the control of bushmeat markets and reduction of illegal hunting;

• Supporting women’s organizations that are involved in conservation of natural resources and global climate change;

• Working with National REDD+ Committees to support adequate representation of women in REDD+ programs and to ensure that women have an equitable share of REDD+ benefits.

Data collected for indicators will be disaggregated by gender to the extent possible. USAID/CAR will conduct a formal gender review during 2012 and update the gender assessment accordingly.

Supporting Indigenous Populations Approximately 500,000 semi-nomadic forest peoples (often referred to as Pygmies, comprising several clans and subgroups) live in the Central African rainforests. They are partially hunter-gatherers, live partially but not exclusively on the wild products of their environment and trade non-timber forest products such as bushmeat, honey and wild fruits with neighboring farmers in exchange for cultivated foods, especially starchy staple products such as manioc and other material items.