February 24 to 25 2015, Malabo, Equatorial Guinea : The 3rd Regional Steering Committee meeting of the "Harmonized regional approach to sustainable management of Congo Basin production forests"  Project was held. The meeting drew COMIFAC National Coordinators, national project focal points in COMIFAC countries, representatives of COMIFAC, UNEP, ANDEGE, WRI and RA.

 
 
The two top agenda items included: (1) a background presentation on the genesis of the project and (2) a rundown of activities conducted since the last March 2014 Steering Committee held in Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo.

 
 
The presentations delivered during the two-day meeting allowed participants among other things to make significant inputs towards improving project implementation in COMIFAC-covered zones. At the close of the meeting, a host of recommendations were put to various beneficiary countries:
 

 
(A) To Congo: the expert study conducted by found that a sustainable solution to the need for a stable power supply in the CETM area ​​would be to set up a transformer. It would be necessary for this purpose to continue advocacy at the level of the National Electricity Company (SNE) through the relevant ministerial authorities.
 

 
(B) To Equatorial Guinea: identify and bring in a Spanish-speaking trainer for the next FLEGT training and certification processes to be undertaken in the country.
 

 
(C) To the CAR: the steering committee identified issues in the country’s project implementation process. Therefore, the financing provided for the CAR was allocated to regional activities.

 
 
(D) At regional level: (i) Project gains need to be integrated into the COMIFAC monitoring and evaluation system and documents incorporated into the knowledge management database under implementation at the Executive Secretariat; (Ii) Share the link to the project’s internal monitoring and evaluation platform with all Steering Committee members; (Iii) Produce information briefs to keep the Steering Committee members abreast of project progress, particularly COMIFAC National Coordinators and operational GEF focal points; (Iv) Further discuss whether it would be worthwhile organizing a regional workshop in the DRC on community forestry.

 
 
It is on a note of satisfaction that the participants parted ways, in hopes of reconvening at the conference scheduled for June 2015 to consider whether an extension would be necessary, in light of the project’s progress status.

 
 
For more details on the conduct of the meeting, please download the final communique: HERE