The Forest Sector in the Congo Basin countries: 20 years of AFD intervention AFD w Ex post Evaluation
It further requires greater emphasis on sustainable funding through the development and transparent management of financial mechanisms. Despite numerous constraints to sustainable forest management by the Research for Excellence Project, there are significant on-going field efforts in Central Africa: new approaches and methods are experimented and implemented with various forest management goals, at different scales and for various management agencies/ schemes. Hopefully, these examples will inspire stakeholders of the forest sector and yield positive results for actions implemented holistically and comprising all aspects of sustainable development”. FMPs and “small concession holders” : how is the tool to be adapted?
Although there is visible impact in large concessions that have owned the FMP tool, it is still too early to assess the extent of ownership by the other categories of concession holders. The PAGEF project, that seeks new avenues for small- and medium-sized concessions, is expected to provide specific data in the coming years. Nevertheless, it is clearly recognized that this process has transposed a FMP tool used in Europe to a different context (type of natural forests, level of governance, type of operators and markets, etc.). With hindsight, this model is, in principle, only suitable for large concession holders with the attendant technical and financial resources to design and implement the tool. This factor inhibits its mainstreaming to other categories of operators, as the current FMP is cumbersome, complex and costly for "small concession holders". A complex and costly model for “small concession holders"
There are many challenges relating to technical capacities, cost and the difficulty in rallying small concession holders and their genuine commitment to sustainable management. With regard to technical, organizational and human capacities, it is worth noting that the stakeholders (large private companies) that actually embarked on FM have developed internal capacities. The groups initially relied on external expertise (mainly French consultancies) before gradually building their own capacities by setting up internal management units. However, the problem has not been solved for small- and medium-sized companies. Indeed, these operators are confronted with several challenges, including: (i) the expansion of their company that is further compounded by their small size and traditional (sometimes family) management system; (ii) requisite investment to acquire the necessary expertise, and (iii) the successive financial or economic crises that gripped them. Today, the CAR experience clearly highlights the difficulties facing medium-scale companies to acquire or maintain specialized skills in forest management. Therefore, it is obvious that the current, very complex FMP is not suitable for small© AFD / May 2012 151