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Action

Fostering South-South cooperation with Brazil in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

  • Year

    2014

  • Location

    Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo

  • Partners

    National REDD+ Coordination (CN REDD), Fundação Amazonas Sustentável (FAS), SalvaTerra

  • Budget

    EUR 110 000

  • Funded by

    European Union

Introduction

The EU REDD Facility facilitated exchanges and mutual learning between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazil and identified opportunities for cooperation between the two countries on REDD+. The project provided financial support, facilitated collaboration, and provided technical input and backstopping to identify areas of potential collaboration between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazil, in the context of bilateral cooperation in REDD+.

The objective

The objective of the project was to facilitate exchanges and mutual learning between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazil. The project sought to identify areas for the two countries to cooperate and to develop project proposals to implement the Memorandum of Understanding on REDD+ cooperation between the two countries.

The challenge

Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are among the largest and most forested countries in the world. Both countries face significant challenges in managing forested areas, ensuring sustainable land use, and securing the social and economic wellbeing of communities that depend on forests.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo seized the opportunity to learn from Brazilian experiences when developing and implementing its National REDD+ Framework Strategy. The Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, INPE) has been helping the Democratic Republic of the Congo develop satellite monitoring since 2011. The TerraCongo forest monitoring system, for example, is modelled on the Brazilian TerrAmazon satellite monitoring system.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazil face significant challenges in managing forested areas, ensuring sustainable land use, and securing the social and economic wellbeing of communities that depend on forests.

The National REDD+ Coordination of the Democratic Republic of the Congo requested technical support from the EU REDD Facility to follow up on a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazil in 2013 to promote further cooperation on:

  • REDD+ processes, including financial aspects
  • Systems for monitoring forest cover
  • Sustainable management and use of forests

Participants from Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo meet during a field trip in May 2014
European Forest Institute

Participants from Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo meet during a field trip in May 2014.

The approach

The project took a three-step approach to identifying promising opportunities for cooperation. The three steps ensured that cooperation would add value for both parties and that both technical and political participants would take ownership. The three steps were:

  1. A review of REDD+ developments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and consultations with a wide range of stakeholders to identify priorities and needs
  2. A comparison of contexts and experiences in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazil to match needs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with Brazilian expertise and solutions
  3. Preparation of project proposals that applied best practice approaches to the specific institutional, cultural, political and economic contexts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Results and impact

Results

  • The project contributed to identifying options for benefit-sharing arrangements in the Mai Ndombe Emissions Reduction Programme in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and proposed a framework for a study on this topic
  • The project prepared concrete proposals for implementing the Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries
  • The project strengthened the capacity of the Democratic Republic of the Congo National REDD+ Coordination (CN REDD) and Congolese civil society participants who took part in the project, in particular through a field mission to Brazil
  • The project developed five project proposals
  • Stakeholders from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazil presented results and lessons learnt from the project at a side event at UNFCCC COP 20 in Lima in December 2014

Impact

  • The National REDD+ Coordination in the Democratic Republic of the Congo undertook a study proposed by the project on benefit-sharing arrangements in the Mai Ndombe Emissions Reduction Programme
  • Five project proposals to support REDD+ were presented to the environment minister and were discussed in bilateral dialogues between the two countries:
    • Implementing the Democratic Republic of the Congo forest monitoring system
    • Setting-up benefit-sharing and complaint mechanisms for the Mai Ndombe Emissions Reduction Programme
    • Enhancing soil fertility by testing new variety of cow peas in South Kwamouth
    • Testing Brazil’s ecological and economic zoning approach to provincial land-use schemes in Mai Ndombe
    • Land-tenure reform in the context of the land rights of communities and indigenous people
  • Limitations to impact included:
    • The requirement for well-defined trusting partnerships and political support to extend South-South cooperation beyond exchanges of knowledge to practical technical collaboration
    • Significant transaction costs for supporting and benefitting countries requiring win-win opportunities for partners to learn and gain from each other’s experiences in unlocking bottlenecks
    • The need to limit the scale of projects as tests of technical solutions are more likely to succeed than projects to influence national reforms
    • The need for Southern countries to take the lead
Juma river aerial view, Brazil
Bruno Kelly

Juma river aerial view, Brazil

Resources

About the EU REDD Facility

The EU REDD Facility supports countries in improving land-use governance as part of their efforts to slow, halt and reverse deforestation. It also supports the overall EU effort to reduce its contribution to deforestation in developing countries. The Facility focuses on countries that are engaged in REDD+, an international mechanism that incentivises developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their forest and land-use sectors. The Facility is hosted by the European Forest Institute and was established in 2010.

Disclaimer

This website has been produced with the assistance of the European Union and the Governments Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands. The contents of this site are the sole responsibility of the European Forest Institute’s EU REDD Facility and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of funding organisations.