Board members of the National Forestry Development Agency (ANAFOR) have called on the powers that be to effectively put in place a national programme for the development of forests plantations so as to enable it (ANAFOR) ably play the role for which it was created. The absence of such a programme, they say, reduces the scope of the agency to simply advising and supporting the private sector and communities in forest regeneration and environmental production.

ANAFOR’s board members re-echoed the long-drawn plea last Friday January 14, 2011 during the agency’s 13^th board meeting under the auspices of Board Chairman, Jean Baptiste Baskouda, assisted by the General Manager, Bekolo Bekolo. In a press declaration, Mr Baskouda foresees hope in 2011. Hope, because government, through the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, last July 2010 launched a call for tender to draw up the national programme for the development of forest plantations. Earlier on, the Ministry of Finance in June 2010 had launched a call for tender to carry out studies on the institutional and operational audit of ANAFOR, all moves which, the Board Chair said, augur well for the future of the agency.

Given the difficulties the agency is going through, mobilising finances to function effectively has proved difficult, reason why board members said it depends solely on the State to survive. In 2010, out of the FCFA 415 million subvention expected from the State to function, ANAFOR, as at December 2010, had received FCFA 400 million and no franc was received for investment out of the FCFA 500 million expected. Its supervisory authority, the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, which was supposed to disburse FCFA 715 million to boost ANAFOR’s activities on the field only gave FCFA 70 million.

These notwithstanding, since the Friday’s session was to review the year just past and project into the ongoing year, Jean-Baptiste Baskouda lauded the ANAFOR’s administration for what he termed strides in troubled waters. The Agency in 2010 built the capacities of 4,890 forest actors, distributed 957,644 tree plants, planted 2,416,584 trees and undertook four projects which are either complete or near completion.

With a budget of FCFA 3.346 billion same as that of 2010, the agency plans, together with its partners, to do more in promoting a new forestry economic sector in the country, harness a network of existing knowledge and skills at national and international levels as well as strive to make Cameroon, through forest regeneration, a greener country, especially in the phase of climate change that has far-reaching effects on natural resources and environmental protection. All these, the Board Chair declared, are aimed at placing ANAFOR at a point where it can ably contribute, in its way, to attaining the growth objectives contained in the country’s Growth and Employment Strategy Paper.