A mission to the Congo Basin: Stakeholder co-design workshops in Cameroon and Gabon
The Central African region is home to approximately 80% of Africa’s biodiversity1. Forestry is a significant contributor to the national gross domestic product of these countries. Despite progress in regulating logging and promoting sustainable resource management2,3, timber value chains in the region continue to face multiple challenges—ranging from technical and political complexities to issues of transparency and unsustainable practices4,5.
The UNEP-WCMC team travelled to Yaoundé (Cameroon) and Libreville (Gabon) in October 2024 to work with local partners in two workshops for the Horizon Europe Projects CLEVER and RAINFOREST. The broad objective of these workshops was to contribute to a better understanding of how legality and sustainability can be strengthened along timber value chains in Cameroon and Gabon.
Traveling from the West Coast of Cameroon to the capital Yaoundé, the view of the Congo Basin rainforest through the bus window was striking, as was the sight of logs loaded onto trucks and the long line of vehicles waiting at the port. This direct experience underscored the importance of moving beyond desktop research to engage with local partners to really understand and incorporate on-the-ground realities.
Our approach was to engage directly with stakeholders, creating an opportunity for co-design with those most affected by legislation such as the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). We invited stakeholders from ministries, industry, NGOs and research institutions to participate in an open discussion about solutions for deforestation and forest degradation. The goal was to collaboratively validate, shape, and inform our research and project outputs.
Coming from a very different background, it was valuable to hear and incorporate local perspectives. Participants demonstrated a deep understanding of the local context —highlighting incentives, disincentives, challenges, and potential solutions. The discussions revealed that many environmental and economic challenges are surprisingly universal, including issues related to financial incentives and supply chain complexities.
The UNEP-WCMC CLEVER team is leading the development of an innovative public and private governance toolkit, and these workshops were crucial for gathering insights. A key finding was that stakeholders generally prefer improving existing solutions over creating entirely new approaches. Participants from both workshops recommended enhancing established traceability and certification schemes and aligning them more closely with forestry legislation.
Our key takeaway was that innovative governance solutions can be effective not just through their design, but also through their communication, application, and enforcement. Importantly, innovative solutions do not necessarily need to be complex or overly nuanced.
The workshops were made possible through the support of CLEVER partners —the European Forest Institute (EFI), the University of Dschang, and our local host, FSC Gabon. We extend our sincere thanks for their hard work and local expertise, which were instrumental in making these workshops invaluable. CLEVER is funded by the European Union and UK Research and Innovation, UKRI (UNEP-WCMC’s share) and coordinated by the University of Bonn. We acknowledge the contribution of the EU Horizon project RAINFOREST to the workshops.
By Heli Sihvonen and Juan Manuel Vargas, UNEP-WCMC
Cover photo credit: Dominique Tessa
Literature:
- 1 P. Mayaux, J.F. Pekel, B. Desclée, F. Donnay, A. Lupi, F. Achard, M. Clerici, C. Bodart, A. Brink, R. Nasi, A. Belward, State and evolution of the African rainforests between 1990 and 2010, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 368 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2012.0300.
- 2 R. Eba’a Atyi, S. Assembe-Mvondo, G. Lescuyer, P. Cerutti, Impacts of international timber procurement policies on Central Africa’s forestry sector: the case of Cameroon, For. Policy Econ. 32 (2013) 40–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2012.12.006.
- 3 African Development Bank, Rapport stratégique régional – Développement intégré et durable de la filière bois dans le bassin du Congo: opportunités, défis et recommandations opérationnelles, 2019. https://www.afdb.org/fr/documents/document/rapport-strategique-regional-developpement-integre-et-durable-de-la-filiere-bois-dans-le-bassin-du-congo-109428.
- 4 J.A. Worah, C.M. Yobo, I. AKPACA, D.M. Iponga, S.N. Maghiengha, H.C. Ndoume Engone, Analyse de la gouvernance et de la légalité d’attribution des titres d’exploitation artisanale du bois d’œuvre au Gabon: revue de littérature, Int. J. Progress. Sci. Technol. 16 (2019) 14. https://doi.org/10.52155/ijpsat.v16.2.1014.
- 5 P.O. Cerutti, J.N. Poufoun, A. Karsenty, R. Eba’a Atyi, R. Nasi, T. Fomete Nembot, The technical and political challenges of the industrial forest sector in Cameroon, Int. For. Rev. 18 (2016) 25–39. https://doi.org/10.1505/146554816819683690.