Congo Basin: WWF pushes new financing model to make forest conservation viable.

This was within the sidelines of the International Meetings of the Secretariat for Environmental Assessment in Central Africa, SEEAC, held in Douala from September 22 to 25, 2026

It was organised around environmental and social assessment and decentralisation as part of SEEAC’s 20th anniversary celebrations. Public institutions, local authorities, experts and development partners attended the event. 

The LFA approach seeks to move financing for the Congo Basin away from fragmented, project-based interventions towards coordinated investments covering entire landscapes, while linking forest conservation with livelihoods, climate resilience and economic development.

According to WWF figures covering 2017-2021, only about four percent of forest finance directed to the world's major tropical forest basins reached the Congo Basin, despite the region's importance to global climate and biodiversity.

Syapze's presentation further indicated that official development assistance remains the dominant source of finance, with grants accounting for about 68 percent and loans about 24 percent of Congo Basin forest finance.

Private-sector financing remains limited, partly because of investment risks, weak connections to sustainable supply chains and inadequate incentives.

Making standing forests pay

The Landscape Finance Approach is based on the premise that standing forests and sustainable landscapes must become economically more attractive than activities that result in their degradation.

The model combines two complementary components, that is “Financing Green” and “Greening Finance”. While Financing Green involves directing capital towards activities with positive environmental and social outcomes, including forest restoration, sustainable livelihoods, climate-resilient value chains, community enterprises and nature-based solutions.

Greening Finance, on the other hand he said, focuses on changing the policies, incentives and financial practices that determine where capital is invested.

This includes risk-sharing and blended-finance mechanisms, greater engagement by banks and investors, and policy reforms capable of creating a more favourable environment for private investment.

The objective he said, is to connect conservation, climate action, community livelihoods and economic development within a single investment framework.

Nature-negative activities

It was indicated that the financing challenge is not limited to Central Africa. Figures cited from the UNEP State of Finance for Nature indicate that about US$200 billion is invested annually in nature-positive activities, compared with approximately US$7 trillion flowing into activities considered nature-negative.

Of the nature-positive financing, around US$165 billion reportedly comes from public sources, while private investment accounts for about US$35 billion. 

WWF estimates that nature-positive finance faces an annual shortfall of approximately US$700 billion. For Congo Basin countries, the challenge is therefore not simply attracting more money, but creating financial and policy conditions capable of redirecting investment towards sustainable economic activities.

TRIDOM fund among proposed solutions

The COMIFAC-WWF Forest Finance Initiative is one of the mechanisms being advanced to improve the financial, policy and political conditions for sustainable forest management in Central Africa.

The initiative proposes technical assistance, policy reforms, stronger governance and political commitments, while seeking to mobilise public, private and blended financing.

Another proposed mechanism is the TRIDOM Trust Fund, designed to combine public resources, blended finance and private-sector capital.

It would operate through three main facilities: that is, a Technical Assistance Facility to develop bankable projects; a Patient Capital Seed Funding Facility to support entrepreneurship and nature-based business models; and a Responsible Commodities Facility to encourage sustainable agricultural and commodity production.

TFFF could unlock new resources

The discussions also examined the proposed Tropical Forests Forever Facility, TFFF, which seeks to provide long-term financial incentives to countries that maintain their tropical forests.

Under the proposed mechanism, sovereign sponsors would provide investment and guarantees to leverage private capital, with participating forest countries receiving payments based on verified conservation performance. Forest monitoring, including satellite-based systems, would be used to verify performance.

A key proposal is that 20 percent of payments would be channeled directly to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. 

For the six Congo Basin countries covered in the presentation, the potential annual payouts were estimated at; Cameroon, US$77 million, Central African Republic — US$31 million, Democratic Republic of Congo — US$336 million. Meanwhile, Equatorial Guinea was estimated to US$8.2 million, Gabon — US$89 million and Republic of Congo, some US$77 million.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3926 of Thursday October 01, 2026