Support for the development of CAR’s REDD+ Preparedness Plan (R-PP) République centrafricaine

Context of the service

The REDD+ mechanism was officially launched at the Bali Climate Conference in December 2007. At the same time, the G8 in Heiligendamm launched the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), a multi-donor fund managed by the World Bank. AFD, a member of the FCPF and very active in the protection of the Congo Basin forests, wished to support the Member States of the Central African Forests Commission (COMIFAC) in the preparation of their Readiness Preparation Plan (R-PP), in order to be able to access the FCPF.
An R-PP must be developed in a very specific format, set up by the FCPF Participants' Committee. It requires extensive institutional, legal, economic and technical analysis, punctuated by broad stakeholder consultations.
To do this, AFD mandated three NGOs based in the Congo Basin, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Conservation International (CI) to support COMIFAC countries in their REDD+ processes. In this context, WWF, in charge of supporting the Central African REDD+ process, called on ad hoc expertise to support the development of the R-PP, the basis for the development of the REDD+ strategy.

Services provided

The experts, in collaboration with national experts, are directly contributed to the following components of the R-Pf:
- Component 1a: Identification of the functions to be carried out to coordinate REDD+ and constitution of ad hoc Committees,
- Component 1b: Identification of stakeholders to be informed and consulted, and design of an ad hoc consultation plan,
- Component 3: Proposal of a methodology for calculating a baseline scenario of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation,
- Component 5: Development of a budget for the implementation of the R-PP.
In addition, the experts coordinated national and international experts recruited for the drafting of the other components, namely:
- Component 2a: Identification of the direct and indirect causes of deforestation and forest degradation,
- Component 2b: Development of options to combat deforestation and degradation, with analysis of technical feasibility, social acceptability, environmental efficiency, economic efficiency and sustainability,
- Component 2c: Identification of existing legal measures to be created in terms of land law and carbon law,
- Component 2d: Development of a socio-environmental assessment system,
- Component 4: Development of a comprehensive forest carbon inventory system.
The Central African R-PP was approved in 2011 and CAR has since started implementing REDD+ activities.

Summary of the service

Support for the development of CAR's REDD+ Preparedness Plan (R-PP): Direct contributions and coordination of 10 national and international experts on the various components of R-PP (institutional structuring, identification of the causes of deforestation, development of the reference scenario, definition of mitigation strategies, legal rules relating to carbon law, MRV of forest carbon and co-benefits, etc.) ; Consolidation and revision of the final report before submission to the FCPF.