English | French | Home

Independent Monitoring of Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (IM-FLEG) in support of FLEGT VPAs in the Congo Basin

On this page: Summary | Activities | What We Aim to Achieve | Partners | Funding


Summary so far

Following 45 months of Independent Monitoring in the Republic of Congo, since December 2010 a new phase of IM-FLEG is being implemented by Forests Monitor in partnership with REM and CAGDF – a Congolese NGO established by the shadow team trained by FM and REM during the previous phase.

The 3-year-project Independent Monitoring of Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (IMFLEG), in support of the FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreements in the Congo Basin to reduce illegal logging, aims at contributing further to transparency and governance improvement in the Congo Basin forest sector.

The current phase of the project focuses on transferring IM-FLEG skills to civil society and strengthening its role within FLEGT VPA implementation. The specific objectives are 1) implementation of IMFLEG in RoC by civil society and 2) increase Congo Basin Civil Society Organisations’ capacity to participate in the negotiation or implementation of FLEGT VPAs through the development of IM-FLEG mechanisms.

To achieve those objectives, the project will provide further training and capacity building of civil society both at a national and sub-regional scale.

You can still access documents relating to the first phase of the project from this part of the site. Want to find out more about the next three years of the project? Visit the Phase II section and follow the links on the right as we add more information.

Activities

The main activities of the project are the following:

  • Independent Monitoring of Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (IM-FLEG) in the Republic of Congo, to systematically document infractions in forest sector activities and analyse gaps in forest law enforcement. IM-FLEG is implemented through field missions, analysis of administrative processes, and multi-stakeholder meetings. Provide recommendations to improve the efficiency of forest law enforcement and promote reform in the forest sector in the Congo Basin region.
  • Training work sessions, to produce joint outputs with civil society representatives, national work sessions in target countries , and continued training of CAGDF team in the Republic of Congo.
  • Scoping Missions in the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon to undertake IM-FLEG activities.
  • Publication of IM-FLEG reports, training outputs and scoping mission findings.
    		• Agents de la direction
    Want to know more about Independent Monitoring and IM-FLEG? Download REM's explanation of Independent Monitoring here in English or French.

    What we aim to achieve

    In the Republic of Congo
  • IM-FLEG is undertaken by local experts/civil society representatives
  • Information on illegal logging activities and gaps in State control is available
  • The strategic deployment of the law enforcement services is improved
  • Documentation of illegal logging by forest law enforcement services is improved
  • Actions are taken on cases of illegal activities in the Forest Sector, sanctions paid
  • Transparency in administrative processes of forest law enforcement is increased
  • Sustainability of the legal, institutional and political reform process currently ongoing in the forests sector is ensured
    • In the Congo basin
  • Civil society’s understanding of IM-FLEG and monitoring ability is increased
  • Civil society’s participation in and understanding of regional processes concerning illegal logging is increased
  • Link established between external monitoring, IM-FLEG missions and VPA
  • Sustainability of the reform process in the forests sector in the region is ensured
  • Information about the forest sector is available to the public

    • Partners

    Forests Monitor’s main partners in the project are: Resource Extraction Monitoring (REM) and CAGDF - REM and FM work in close collaboration on technical as well as strategic aspects of the project, such as the realisation of scoping missions to develop new IM-FLEG projects in the Congo Basin. REM’s main focus however, is on the independent monitoring component of the project. CAGDF participates actively to IM-FLEG activities and work sessions.


    Funder's Site: EuropeAid Co-operation Office Home Page This project is being implemented with financial assistance from the European Commission, the Department for International Development, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and Projet de Renforcement des Capacites de Transparence et de Gouvernance, for a total amount of 2,103,493 Euros. Its content is the sole responsibility of Forests Monitor (FM), which co-ordinated the project, and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of our funders.






    You can use Google to search our site:





    This page was last updated on the 9th August 2011.