Continued development on continent through
sustainable wood value chains
Staff Reporter
On the African continent, more than 20% of its territory is covered by forests. Despite strides made across many industries and putting Africa among the fastest growing economy globally, the economic performance of the region is still far below internationally agreed targets.
With a population of 1 billion predicted for 2040, Africa not only has a substantial challenge, but also a unique opportunity to establish a sustainable path to development. Building low-carbon rural and urban landscapes with a reduced material footprint would be of paramount importance. Forests, their products and value chains are vital elements towards sustainable development.
The Africa Vision 2063 is that by then, the entire continent would be prosperous with the necessary means to drive its own development through sustainable, long-term stewardship of its resources. Part of the vision is that Africa would be a continent of seamless borders and cross-border resources managed through dialogue and cooperation by all. To achieve this, Africa should consolidate the positive turn-around, using the opportunities of demographics, natural resources, urbanisation, technology and trade as stepping stones to ensure its transformation to meet its people’s aspirations.
It is hoped that by 2063 the continent would have zero deforestation and forest degradation and its forests would be protected, sustainably managed and restored. This would be possible through collaborative, cross-sectoral and transformative efforts to ensure the prosperity, food security and resilience of all the people on the continent.
This plan would need the involvement of all stakeholders with interests in forests’ goods and services and to create synergies and negotiate mutual and balanced benefits while ensuring social, economic and environmental sustainability.
Africa’s forest value chain development is still in its infant stages. A plethora of wood and non-wood forest products are already being produced, but mostly for local markets. Processing is mostly restricted to primary and secondary levels with the largest section that of production informal. This jeopardises formulation of policies and enhances illegal actions. Such business is sometimes conducted in haphazard and this is one of the main reasons access to technical and financial means is restricted. All this curbs the potential of proper value chain development.
Despite the region’s abundant forest resources and continuous investment to improve governance and sustainability of wood production in the region, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) had turned from a net exporter of forest products to a net importer over the last decade with a trade deficit of over USD 2 billion in 2017. Wood products imports are mainly processed items such as pulp and paper products and wood-based panels, reflecting an industry characterised by low value-addition. This informality and illegality render most of the contributions unsustainable.
An assessment by the FAO on the sustainability of wood value chains in the Congo Basin, conducted by the WWF two years ago, showed that in some countries the volume of timber directed to charcoal, sawn wood and plywood, furniture and construction for African markets exceeded the total volume of exported timber.
African industries are mainly informal and small-scale operations. However, before being able to address bottlenecks and policies, additional analysis is needed to identify opportunities, programmes and investment strategies to strengthen sustainability
The current wood processing industry uses old and obsolete machinery which hampers increase, value adding, marketing and trade efforts. Unethical trade practices, lack of standards for many wood products and limited market information, are also severely limiting, as are the informal, dispersed and uncoordinated nature the forest(wood) trade.
Proper natural resource management and a lack of clearly defined ownership of these, lack of technical expertise, management, use, control and monitoring, are proving to be major, but not insurmountable challenges.
Illegal harvesting and trade in wood products and services, insecure forest tenure and lack of effective mechanisms for land-tenure reform had been highlighted by the WWF report, referred to herein. Inadequate development plans and strategies, limited coordination and harmonisation between agriculture, food security, infrastructural development and forestry had resulted.
According to a document by the African Union (AU), some of the biggest problems were corruption and illicit exploitation and trade of Africa’s natural resources. Lack of proper rule and application of existing laws hampers good governance, which in turn negatively affects mutually supportive and cooperative relationships among governments, civil society and the private sector. This presents a major challenge in acquiring sufficient domestic public funds for the forest sector.
Since its inception in 2003, the FLEGT Action Plan (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) had been instrumental in bringing issues of timber legality and social and environmental impacts of logging and wood trade to the forefront of the agenda in most major timber producing countries across Africa.
Eight countries (Ghana, Liberia, Cameroon, Gabon, Central African Republic, DR Congo, Republic of Congo and Côte d’Ivoire) had committed to improve governance of their logging sector by discussing and implementing wide-ranging FLEGT reforms. The FAO EU FLEGT programme had thus far supported more than 200 projects carried out by forest administrations.
The Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) also seeks to support Forest and Farm Producer Organisations (FFPO’s) for climate-resilient forest landscapes and improved livelihoods for their members. FFF had recently finalised its first year of Phase II implementation in five core partner countries, (Ghana, Kenya, Zambia Togo and Madagascar). The FFF aims to aid FFPO’s in identifying the most practical investment options. This includes personal and community savings, loans to banks, direct investment through value chain integration, as well as access to government incentives and funds based on blended finance. The FFF is conducting hands-on training programmes and provides tools to support a new pipeline of finance-ready business plans.
A key element to support forest value chains in Africa is availability of consistent and reliable information. Such information should refer not only to the actual state of forests, but also include perspective for the natural base and socioeconomic dimension. This should provide improved planning strategies in line with African and international market development.
