Welcome to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a land of vast opportunity and constant challenges. Home to mighty rivers, mountain gorillas, and mineral mining; Soukous music, crippling poverty, and localized unrest; expansive forests and a forest-reliant population.
DRC's forests are vast and valuable. Two-thirds of the country is covered in forest, which forms part of the Congo Basin, home to the world's second-largest rainforest. Over half the country's population live in rural and remote areas, the majority relying on these forests for food, fuel, and income, often to the detriment of the environment. That is more than 50 million people tasked with reconciling daily subsistence with protecting the forests that support their livelihoods and represent one of the world's largest carbon sinks. The question isn't whether to support people or protect trees, but how to break the cycle of poverty and environmental degradation to realize the ecological and economic opportunity held within these forests.
Successes for People and Planet
For the past decade, the Improved Forest Landscape Management Project (IFLMP), supported by the World Bank, has committed time and resources into tackling these challenges. Launched in 2014 with initial funding from the Climate Investment Fund's Forest Investment Project and additional financing through the Global Environment Facility and Central African Forest Initiative, the project trialed groundbreaking approaches to enhance community livelihoods, strengthen sustainable forests and landscape management, and reduce green-house gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
By investing in long term behavioral change in rural communities, IFLMP not only built a solid foundation for expanding livelihoods less reliant on forest ecosystems, but it also delivered practical benefits for rural populations coping with the daily impacts of poverty and land degradation.
"The use of our improved cookstoves is very beneficial for consumer households. A household that used to use two bags of charcoal per month for cooking, can now use a single bag or two-thirds of a bag per month once they have adopted our improved stove technology. From an environmental point of view, our improved cookstoves do not hold back those who want to cook on high heat and do not pollute the environment," explains Florence Kavira, one of the beneficiaries of the IFLMP Grant for the Production and Marketing of Improved Cookstoves.
To lessen forest dependence and provide families with alternative and reliable fuel sources, the project delivered clean and efficient cookstoves that improved respiratory health for over 600,000 people and reduced reliance on forests for charcoal.
"Operating for a decade gave the project enough time to build trust and familiarity in the communities and with the landscape. This resulted in tangible benefits that adapt and respond to local needs, which is key to achieving results and impacts that last beyond the project cycle," says Patrice Savadogo, Senior Forestry Specialist with the World Bank and IFLMP Team Leader. Savadogo refers to project successes such as the establishment of 25,117 hectares of community and private agroforestry plantations, which increased the incomes of over 248,500 local and indigenous people, the majority of whom were women. Land area where sustainable land management practices were adopted thanks to the project amounts to 376,565 hectares supported and 7,425,801 hectares covered by land use plans. It also ushered in the landmark signing of a $55 million Emission Reductions Payment Agreement (ERPA) between the World Bank and DRC government, which will provide ongoing payments based on the country's continued emission reductions.
Under the ERPA, community contributions to improved landscape management and reduced deforestation and forest degradation are rewarded through an innovative Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) initiative. To date, the PES has disbursed over $3 million in results-based payments that were re-invested into community-led microprojects. This on-going initiative is key to sustaining enhanced livelihoods and will enable communities and indigenous peoples to directly benefit from protecting the country's forest carbon stocks.
In Ndongwa village of the Lukula local development area in Kongo Central, a farmer and beekeeper Akim Kimosi benefited from extended training and support to start beekeeping to offset his work clearing land and farming. "Normally there is no training here and we survive with the knowledge we have always had. Money was scarce, but since I started this [beekeeping] work, things have improved. Now I can educate my children, pay rent, and invest in my field work," he says. Kimosi still uses the forest, but where it was once degraded and unhealthy, he now sees greater growth and productivity thanks to less land clearing and more sustainable agricultural practices.
"Instead of one-off trainings or brief capacity building programs, a 10-year investment meant that communities had time to see the changes, internalize new ways of life, and voluntarily adopt behavioral change. Abandoning slash-and-burn agriculture for sustainable agroforestry in savanna areas wasn't just presented in theory, local people actually understood that there were alternative agricultural practices and experienced the long-term benefits to their lives and the surrounding forest," explains Savadogo.
Connection and Collaboration
The geographic span of the DRC is one of the largest in Africa, leaving many communities cut-off from urban centers. To support sustainable agriculture and local forest management, and improve access to markets and alternative employment opportunities, IFLMP invested considerably in improving rural connectivity by rehabilitating and building over 462 km of roads and 49 bridges. In addition to isolation, global and local health crises led to expected and unexpected challenges during project operations. In response, IFLMP needed to embrace flexibility to work across sectors and undertake health assistance and sensitization on issues such as family planning, HIV, Ebola, and COVID.
These health and infrastructure activities directly responded to pressing issues in the areas where IFLMP was operating and built trust in the communities that the project would actively seek to improve their livelihoods as needed and not just in direct response to set objectives. Helping local communities overcome connectivity and health barriers also meant they had more time and resources to commit to IFLMP activities.
But it's not just time and resources that were invested in tackling these multifaceted issues. "IFLMP had champions at high levels of government," says Savadogo, explaining that the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development not only championed the Project, but also worked with other ministries to deliver the lasting and enhanced collaboration.
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Beyond IFLMP
IFLMP officially closed at the end of May 2024, but the political, environmental, and behavioral changes ushered in over the past decade have cemented themselves into political and daily life in DRC. Almost 200,000 hectares of community forest concessions are now active, ongoing PES-financed microprojects continue to assist local indigenous communities, and there are lasting benefits from improved knowledge and sustainable landscape management capacity, such as how to establish plantations that serve communities and biodiversity. Additionally, the ERPA will incentivize ongoing protection for the country's immense forests, safeguarding their considerable value as a global carbon sink, national economic asset, and essential source of local livelihoods beyond project closure.
While protecting DRC's forests and its forest-reliant communities is an ongoing effort, achievements so far have made a tangible difference for the environment, climate, and local livelihoods. IFLMP's successes and lessons were instrumental in the design of the $300 million Forest and Savanna Restoration Project that is now building on and expanding IFLMP initiatives across seven provinces, including setting up a national PES system. After a decade of innovation and trialing new approaches, the project has paved the way for forest and landscape management that delivers globally relevant climate and environmental contributions, nationally important economic benefits, and locally essential livelihoods.
