Multi-sector Programme in Equateur Province - DRCongo

Expected Impacts  

The PIREDD Equateur seeks to achieve two objectives: 

• Reduce the province’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 10 percent compared to the Forest Reference Emission Level (FREL). 
• Improve the daily lives of approximately 23,760 households in the four territories where interventions are planned, including 6,564 households of indigenous peoples, and to increase their income by 10 percent. 

Objectives

• Good governance: strengthening the local community management structures represented, including the establishment of 359 local development committees, whose democratically elected members include a minimum of 40 percent women, and federated into six rural agricultural management councils.
• Land use planning and tenure: development of land use maps and implementation of participatory land use planning based on micro- and macro-zoning of village and provincial lands. Six sectors will have a land use plan that is followed. 
• Community forestry: 480,000 ha of new community forest concessions will protect forest carbon stocks and peat bog areas; reforestation of savannah and anthropogenic areas of local community forest concessions. 
• Agricultural investments: support to develop short-cycle food crops (rice, maize, cowpea and groundnut) oriented towards savannah and fallow lands. The development of this sedentary agriculture will be accompanied by investments in improved, more productive crops and enhanced processing and conservation techniques. Thirty percent of the targeted communities should benefit economically from this new method of agricultural production. 
• Wood energy: 3,000 ha will be planted for sustainable production of wood energy on the outskirts of urban centres and around rural dwellings. In addition, 7,000 ha of natural forest will be set aside for natural regeneration. 
• Migratory and demographic dynamics:  promotion of access to family planning services for local and indigenous populations to achieve the prevalence of contraceptive methods in at least 10 percent of targeted communities. Local populations, especially women and indigenous people, will benefit from education on nutrition. 

Progress as of 30 June 2023

• Governance:
  • 90 Local Development Committees (LDCs) created.

• Land use planning:  
  • 6 Simple Land Plans (PSATs) being implemented, which also contributes to building the capacities of local administrations such as Environmental and Regional Planning.
  • 13 Simple Management Plans (SMP) approved for the sustainable management of community forests.
  • 21 canals created and used.
• Family planning:
  • Contraceptives distributed free of charge to 3,513 new beneficiaries in the communities of Mbandaka and Wangata.
  • 40 participants in Bolenge participated in clean cooking and nutritional education sessions in Mbandaka.
• Forestry:
  • 80,424 ha of forested land established as community forestry (of the 480,000 ha target).
  • 17 community cases for granting new Local Community Forest Consession (LCFC) titles, covering 162,000 ha, have been identified by the competent local administrative authorities and have been submitted for approval.
• Agriculture: 
  • 300 ha of food crops planted (10% of 3,000 ha target).
  • 441 ha of agroforestry planted for sustainable wood energy use (14.7% of 3,000 ha target).
  • 1,632 ha of perennial crops, in association with agroforestry and reforestation plots, established.
• Energy:
  • 6,054 ha of savannah land set aside for natural regeneration (86% of 7,000 ha target) in the Lusankani area.
  • 3,750 improved cookstoves produced (13% of the target of 27,000 cookstoves), giving access to cleaner cooking.

Earlier progress of this programme have also been described in the 2021 semestrial publication of the DRC National REDD+ Fund – read it here (in French).

Areas of intervention

The programme covers four of the seven territories: three in the south (Lukolela, Bikoro and Ingende), bordering Mai-Ndombe province, to ensure that preservation of these two contiguous forest massifs is uninterrupted and avoid any rebound effect; and the Bomongo Territory, a vast wetland that is home to the Ngiri Protected Reserve.

Synergies

The Equateur PIREDD Equateur contributes to objectives 1 (governance), 2 (land use planning), 3 (forests), 4 (agriculture), 5 (energy) and 6 (demography) of the 2016 Letter of Intent between the DRC and CAFI. Two independent verifications of these milestones were undertaken (please read the report available here).