A year after its launch, a World Bank team on March 13-18, 2017 visited Burkina Faso for the supervision of the Support Project for Forest-dependent People (PAPF). The goal of the mission was to monitor and support the activities of the project.
The visit, it was gathered, gave an opportunity for consulting with the Project’s actors and partners, such as the national steering committee, Ministry for Environment, Green Economy and Climate Change, Forest Investment Programme (FIP) and field actors.
Visits to micro-project sites made it possible to collect suggestions that can help to better operationalise the project in the field so as to create synergy among the actors’ interventions, according to “PACO News”, a publication of the Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso-based Central and West Africa Programme (PACO) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The level of implementation of the activities was deemed to be satisfactory, and recommendations and commitments were made to ensure the success of the Project. The mission worked in close collaboration with the project team of IUCN-Burkina Faso and the national steering committee of the project.
The PAPF was developed and funded under the Grant Mechanism for Indigenous peoples and local communities, which was created and developed as a special programme under the Forest Investment Programme (FIP.)
In a similar development, while meeting in Tenkodogo, Burkina Faso March 14-16, 2017, the representatives of five municipalities (Bissiga, Lalgaye, Soudougui, Silly and Tenkodogo) agreed on strategies, approaches and actions aimed at saving their forest assets.
Mobilised by IUCN and the Swedish Cooperation within the framework of the“Support Project for forest riparian communities’ adaptation to climate change”, these municipalities reflected the forest administration, provincial and regional authorities, representatives of communities promoting forest commodities, the customary authorities, technical partners and partner projects/programmes. The discussions, discloses PACO News, enabled them to be better equipped for effectively taking care of the sustainable management of the Sablogo, Soudougui and Silly forest massifs.
The municipalities also agreed on the development for each massif of a 2017 work plan and a mechanism for sharing the achievements of the project so as to ensure the visibility of their actions. A steering committee and regional monitoring committee will assist them to that effect. A sum of about CFA Franc 1 billion will be required to achieve the objectives during year 2017.
PACO News also reports that on Thursday, March 2 2017, a Cabinet Meeting in Guinea Bissau approved by decree the “Guinea Bissau National Development and Ecotourism Strategy”.
The development of the strategy comes under a partnership bringing together the Ministry of Tourism and Handicrafts, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development through the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Institute (IBAP) and the relevant environmental assessment Agency with the technical assistance of the IUCN office in Guinea.
The”Equitable and Sustainable Tourism Promotion in Guinea Bissau” project, financed by the MAVA Foundation, has also enabled the development of a set of training actions and acquisition of equipment, infrastructure and promotional materials for enhancing the efforts made by Guinea Bissau to create protected areas and give the communities supplementary economic opportunities.
