The project Private Sector Support in Congo (ASP Congo) project draws to a close and ASP Congo II gets underway

17.05.2024

On Wednesday 24 April 2024, the International Tropical Timber Technical Association (ATIBT) held the closing meeting of the Private Sector Support project in the Republic of Congo. The meeting was attended by some twenty stakeholders and partners (forest companies, representatives of timber industry trade associations, the EU delegation, civil society and the Ministry of Forest Economy), who took the opportunity to express their hopes for the launch of phase II.

This project, which was set up with the aim of making an effective contribution to improving forest governance in the country by building the capacity of forestry companies to manage forest resources in a sustainable, inclusive and transparent way, is coming to an end. It will have enabled intense activities to be carried out as part of the process of developing the regulatory framework in the Republic of Congo, with the flagship reforms of Law 33-2020 of 8 July 2020 on the Forestry Code and the VPA-FLEGT process as the showcase.

On this point, Alain Bertin TIOTSOP, representative of ATIBT Congo, expressed his satisfaction with the coaching provided to forest companies to increase their capacity to become involved in the implementation of the FLEGT process, in particular compliance with forest legality and traceability requirements.

"It is important for ATIBT to support forest companies in the process of collecting and preparing the verification documents that will later be integrated into the computerised legality verification system and that will enable companies to benefit from FLEGT legality certificates," said the ATIBT representative.

During the meeting, which was actively attended by the European Union delegation, the APV-FLEGT facilitator, the Ministry of Forest Economy, partners from the forestry federation-UNICONGO, UNIBOIS, non-affiliated companies and civil society, the ATIBT presented the other main results of the project, the major difficulties encountered and its prospects, including:

Continuing to produce webinars on a number of cross-cutting issues in the industry;
Continued implementation of the communication strategy and plan;
Intensifying support for partners (UNICONGO and UNIBOIS) to make the "FILIERE BOIS CONGO" website their own;
Contributing to the dissemination of the "Guide de renseignement des moyens de vérification de la grille de légalité des bois provenant des forêts naturelles dans le SIVL";
Continuing to coach companies on legality and traceability upstream of the SIVL;
Contributing to the improvement of some application texts with the relaunch of the GTMA.

The partners praised the considerable practical contribution that this project has made to the forestry sector in the Republic of Congo and joined with the other participants in expressing the wish that phase II of the ASP Congo project be launched.