Central Africa Regional
The Development Challenge: Central Africa contains the second largest area of contiguous moist tropical forest in the world. The nine countries of the Central Africa Congo Basin include Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Sao Tome/Principe. More than 60 million people living in the region depend on the rich forests and other biotic resources for their livelihoods and economic development. Prudent use and conservation of the environmental resources in the Congo Basin will support broad-based economic development and promote good governance. The challenge, however, is how to use and conserve environmental resources without jeopardizing either the future of the human population or the biodiversity of the ecosystem in which they live. These forests form the catchment basin of the Congo River, a watershed of local, regional and global significance. The Congo Basin forests provide valuable ecological services by absorbing and storing excess carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels, thereby helping to slow the rate of global climate warming. In addition, the Congo Basin forests also contain valuable natural resources. It is in the U.S. national interest to promote sustainable management of these natural resources to protect global bio-diversity, to address global climate warming concerns, and to foster good governance at the regional, national and local levels.
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The USAID Program: The Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) has a single strategic objective that is managed by USAID/Kinshasa. CARPE's principal goal is to reduce the rate of forest degradation and loss of biodiversity through increased local, national, and regional natural resource management. Activities supporting this objective take place across the region, both within the nine Congo Basin countries and in trans-border areas. Secretary Powell launched the Congo Basin Forest Partnership at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg on September 4, 2002. CARPE is the principal U.S. vehicle to achieve the goals of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) Presidential Initiative: promote economic development, alleviate poverty, improve governance and natural resources conservation through a network of national parks and protected areas, well-managed forestry concessions, and assistance to communities. Achieving these goals depends upon the conservation of the forest and wildlife resources of 11 key landscapes in six Central African countries. Landscapes are ecologically significant areas, some of which have been designated as national parks. Areas where important species of plants or animal habitats occur are being identified and mapped, management plans are being developed and staff trained. Key activities include protected area management, natural resources management planning, improved logging policies, sustainable forest use by local inhabitants, and development of alternative livelihoods where necessary to ensure stability, and improved environmental governance.
In CARPE Phase I (FY 1995 - FY 2002), the program's primary objectives were to increase the knowledge of Central African forests and biodiversity and to build institutional and human resource capacities. In CARPE Phase II, the focus of the program has shifted. During Phase II, CARPE partners aim to apply "lessons learned" and implement sustainable natural resource management practices in the field, improve environmental governance in the region, and strengthen natural resources monitoring capacity. In order to facilitate this programmatic shift a decision was made to move the management of CARPE from the Africa Bureau at USAID/Washington to USAID/Democratic Republic of the Congo based in Kinshasa. A new Strategic Plan was approved in January 2003 and placed under the authority of USAID/Kinshasa. CARPE now operates as the Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment, Strategic Objective 605-001. For the first three months of FY 2003, CARPE was implemented under AFR/SD's SO 17 with the primary outcome being the design of the new SO and the recruitment of the field manager.
Other Program Elements: As the CARPE program is focused on the Congo Basin where only two USAID missions are present, it is heavily dependent upon collaboration among a large number of U.S. private voluntary organizations (PVOs), other U.S. federal agencies and U.S. embassies in the region. Activities in non-presence countries (NPCs) of the Congo Basin are coordinated by USAID/Kinshasa, but actual implementation relies heavily upon the U.S. PVOs and their relationships with the governments and societies of these NPCs. The EGAT pillar bureau provides support to gorilla conservation in several sites in the Congo basin which is highly complementary to CARPE.
Other Donors: USAID's strategy in the Congo Basin has consistently been to integrate and coordinate with other donors. Now with the CBFP as an organizing framework to help coordinate 29 CBFP organizations, CARPE will play an even more integral role in linking donors to achieve common conservation objectives. Key donor CBFP partners active in the region and/or CBFP include the European Union, World Bank, Global Environment Facility (GEF), The French Fund for the World Environment, German Development Cooperation, DGIS (Netherlands), Government of Japan, British AID (DFID) and the International Tropical Timber Organization, among others.
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