At RCoEs regional meeting: Stakeholders strategise to support sustainable forests, biodiversity management.

The meeting hosted by Landscape Alliance, formerly CIFOR-ICRAF, will end today Wednesday, September 30. 

It is being co-chaired by the African Director for Landscape Alliance, Dr Peter A Minang, and the Representative of European Union Delegation to Cameroon, Peedel Stephen.

The RCoEs form part of the European Union-funded African Regional Centres of Excellence related to the Green Transition Programme. 

The initiative aims to strengthen Africa’s science, technology and innovation capacities and generate knowledge to support key dimensions of the Green Deal, including forests and biodiversity, water, oceans, agroecology and climate change.

The Africa Director for Landscape Alliance explained that the gathering in Yaounde brings together about fifteen partners from West, East, South and Central Africa.

Dr Peter A Minang said the main objective is to enhance biodiversity and forest management through the provision of viable and valid information that decision makers can use in making decisions on managing forest. 

“We have had a really powerful reflection this morning with the EU representative and our COMIFAC partners as well as other partners on 27 recommendations that we want to make. The recommendations will center on improving the program, ensuring collection of the right information, ensuring quality information, and making sure the information reaches all users in the right way and in the right format for optimum decisions making,” he said. 

For the representative of European Union Delegation to Cameroon, Peedel Stephen, the Yaounde meeting is not only important for the forests and biodiversity of country or the region, but for the entire African continent.

Peedel highlighted that the Centers of Excellence is a long-term effort, essentially to provide the necessary information to make the right decisions around very important issues of forest and biodiversity. 

“Here in Cameroon, it is a very important part of the economy, cultural and environmental, and these are the issues that we share and discuss with our partners from West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa,” the EU official said.

Peedel added that: “The European Union is funding this activity, to provide information and knowledge, to raise the profile, and to make the right decisions around the environment in this region and others”. 

With twenty-seven areas earmarked for recommendations, the EU envoy attested that many of them are very detailed concerning the program. 

With several people working on the project, he reiterated the need to improve its coordination while taking into account the specificities and roles of each partner. 

“It is not easy, but we have in this partnership exactly the people we need to bring this type of solutions and these recommendations are very clear and we have fifteen months within the current program to act on them,” Peedel avowed. 

By the end of the session, the stakeholders would review progress, priorities and key implementation issues across the three Regional Centres of Excellence, strengthen coordination, communication and joint planning among regional, continental and global components. 

They are also expected to identify opportunities for collaboration on cross-cutting components, including NaturAfrica, IMET, knowledge management and overall coordination. 

It is important to note that the RCoE Biodiversity and Forests initiative is to support the sustainable management of forests, biodiversity and seascape ecosystems in Africa so that they continue to provide ecosystem services and contribute to the well-being of local populations. 

This will be achieved by improving access to regular, reliable and up-to-date information for evidence-based decision-making. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3925 of Wednesday September 30, 2026