Descriptions
The FORETS II Project "FOrmation, Research, Environment in the TShopo – Phase II" is the direct continuation of the FORETS project. The Action is defined as a substantial contribution to the integrated development of the Yangambi Landscape (www.yangambi.org). It has specific objectives relating to the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity while contributing to the sustainable development of local populations. The activities that are defined in the Yangambi Landscape in the Province of Tshopo concern not only the support to local communities through awareness-raising, vulgarization and supervision actions but also the strengthening of national human resources, in particular through formal university training of the LMD type.
The Action aims to embrace a range of socio-economic development opportunities within a landscape of about 1 and a half million hectares and directly or indirectly affecting a rural and urban population of about two million people. Although strongly rooted in the continuity of the overall objectives and long-term vision that CIFOR and its partners have for the development of the Yangambi Landscape, the design of the FORETS II action and the planning of its activities have at least three major differences from the past. First, the integrated approach in the Yangambi Landscape is strongly focused on the development of the local private sector, a trend that has already marked the last years of implementation of FORETS, NPC and YPS but takes on even more momentum with FORETS II. Secondly, the use of blended finance and impact funds leads to new approaches, accompanied in particular by the use of financial performance criteria. Thirdly, the use of co-management instruments within stakeholders – both those already operational such as the Public Private Partnership (PPP) between INERA, R&SD and CIFOR, as well as others still under discussion – require even greater attention and action on landscape and institutional governance, both at local level, than provincial or national.
