The President of the Republic, Felix Antoine Tshisekedi, called on the partners of the Democratic Republic of Congo to support his Government’s efforts to preserve the Congo’s forest ecosystem. He made this plea on Monday, September 23, 2019, at the meeting of the Tropical Forest Alliance held in New York on the margins of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

« This support should be achieved through serious financial compensation, effective partnerships and technology transfer to enable sustainable action and enhanced action on mitigation, adaptation and mitigation of greenhouse gases at the root of global warming, » said Félix Antoine Tshisekedi.

https://twitter.com/Presidence_RDC/status/1176134575661178881

In sending this message to governments, multilateral organizations, NGOs and private sector economic operators, the Congolese head of state says he finds it inconceivable that the world’s best conserved forests can only capture 1% of the available funding.

Hence, he stressed, the need to do more and in an overall dynamic to enable the Congo Basin forest massif, more than 60% of which is covered by DR Congo, to fully play its decisive role in regulating the global climate. And in return for enabling DR Congo to achieve the energy transition by accelerating the development and promotion of clean and renewable energies.

https://twitter.com/Presidence_RDC/status/1176125679370473473

Speaking of some initiatives to benefit from this win-win partnership, the Congolese head of state referred to the « School gardens for 1 billion trees » programme, which consists in raising awareness among young people about respect for the environment, and training university executives in responsible environmental management.

There are also those to establish a National Charter for the Environment and Sustainable Development, establish a Forest Mapping, assess the biodiversity potential of Congo and protect peatlands and local communities, while ensuring the proper management of forest concessions and related land registers.

https://twitter.com/Presidence_RDC/status/1176181146864050177

At the international level, the President of the Republic cited the operationalization and promotion of the green economy and the blue economy in Central Africa and the mobilization of the international community’s efforts to contribute to the capitalization of the Green Economy Fund and the Blue Fund.

In addition, the implementation of the Summit Initiative of the Three Forest Basins Summit and the implementation of the roadmap for the promotion of renewable energies in Central Africa, as well as 26 priority Integrator Projects, including Inga 3 for the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 16 projects of the Transboundary Electrification Programme under the coordination of the Central African Power Pool, have been boosted respectively.

https://twitter.com/ONUinfo/status/1176232266017771521

If the forests of DR Congo were to go up in smoke, the President of the Republic warned that more than 52% of Africa’s fresh water would go with them. The disappearance of this ecosystem would cause a serious ecological crisis and destabilize global climate stability.

Eric TSHIKUMA, Special Envoy