Inadequately designed proposals hindered access to financing.

Forest-related official development assistance is said to have witnessed a sharp increase in recent years. Partly due to the emergence of climate financing for sustainable forest management in the form of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, REDD+3, the assistance exceeded FCFA 603 billion for the first time in two decades in 2013. The information was disclosed at the opening of a five-day workshop on effective project design for sustainable forest management that kicked off at the Douala Sawa Hotel February 1.

In his opening remark, the representative of the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, Mfou’ou Mfou’ou Bruno, Director of Forests at the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, said the training by the United Nations Forum on Forests, UNFF, will help government to come up with an impeccable project. Peter Gondo, UNFF Inter-Regional Adviser on Sustainable Forest Management, said whereas there is a lack of funds for forests with some funding bodies, there is a lot of funding elsewhere but access is limited by inadequate capacities.

The workshop is focused on improving capacities to access Global Environmental Facility, GEF, financing for Cameroonian forests and forest dependent peoples. However, it will also address basics of the Green Climate Fund and the Adaptation Fund. It was in Johannesburg, South Africa, in October 2014 that the UNFF Secretariat was called to conduct capacity building on grant applications, bankable project proposal writing to international donors, and the creation of portfolio proposals to attract funding.

The need to access financing to address sustainable forest management governance, operational and policy challenges in the country is patent. The workshop aims to reinforce forest sector government staff capacities to access forest-related official development assistance. This implies enhancing capacities in designing activities, projects and programmes that attract international funding.