Bujumbura, Republic of Burundi, March 13-14, 2023 - The sub-regional workshop on the results of the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ended today.
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Organized by the Executive Secretariat of the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) with the support of the German cooperation through the GIZ project of support to COMIFAC, this meeting is part of the COMIFAC Working Group on Climate Change (WGCC) and aims to enable COMIFAC member countries to better understand the results of the COP 27 in order to continue to fulfill their obligations as a Party to the UNFCCC.
In his speech, Mr. Hervé MAIDOU, Executive Secretary of COMIFAC, indicated that the sub-regional workshop being held in Bujumbura is organized as part of the working group on climate change, one of the thematic groups of COMIFAC, which was created in 2010. According to him, the fact that COMIFAC chose the city of Bujumbura is not a coincidence, but rather a political alignment with the speech of the President of the Republic of Burundi during the COP27 in Sharm El Check in Egypt, where the Burundian Head of State emphasized the determined commitment of Burundi to fighting against climate change, and that the country was already preparing to take the torch of COMIFAC. He invited the participants to make a critical analysis of the participation of our Central African sub-region in COP 27, as well as to draw lessons that will allow us, not only to have a better visibility for the next negotiation sessions, but also strategies for mobilizing funding for the conservation and sustainable management of forests, by focusing on the Declaration of Commitment signed by COMIFAC Member States in Yaoundé in September 2021, in favor of Central African forests, and the call for equitable funding (The Fair Deal).
Mr. Emmanuel NDORIMANA, assistant and representative of Prof. Sanctus NIRAGIRA, Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock of Burundi, recalled that the issue of climate change is increasingly becoming a major concern in the world and in particular in the COMIFAC countries, given the frequency and intensity of natural disasters resulting from recent climate changes. The impacts of climate change have intensified over the past five years, he said, explaining that the spatial manifestations are expressed by the warning increase in flooding, landslides, cases of malaria, destruction of infrastructure such as roads, etc.
According to the assistant Emmanuel NDORIMANA, the forests of Central Africa play a key role in carbon sequestration and they provide an opportunity to combine the efforts of countries to take advantage of them and implement nationally determined contributions and make them more ambitious for the development of communities in COMIFAC member countries. For him, COP27 has taken an important step by creating a fund for loss and damage, and making it operational in the coming period, while appreciating the fact that the United Nations has decided to support this effort at every stage of the process.
At the end of this work, the participants took ownership of the results of the work done by the different bodies during COP 27; the stakes of the future deadlines under the UNFCCC were identified and a strategy for the participation of the sub-region in the future deadlines was elaborated by the participants; an inventory of the revision process of the NDCs in the COMIFAC member countries was made by all the participants;
About fifty participants from the following countries took part in the workshop: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Chad; the National Focal Points of the UNFCCC; the National NDC Officers, the National REDD+ Coordinators, and the COMIFAC National Coordinators.
The representatives of the COMIFAC Executive Secretariat, technical and financial partners (OCFSA, TRAFFIC, USFW, WCS, WWF) and Civil Society organizations: CIFREDD, FENSED, PARTNERSHIP, PRRPB, RECEIAC, REFADD, REJEFAC, REPAR) were also present.
As a reminder, the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27) was held from 6 to 19 November 2022 in Egypt. About 30,000 delegates from States, institutions and non-state actors participated.
Among the key stakes was the recognition of the "reparation" of the "loss and damage", irreversible damage caused by the climate disruption in the most "vulnerable" countries. This acknowledgement of the responsibility of the countries that emit the most greenhouse gases and of the necessary reparations that result from it, is a victory for civil society organizations, particularly in the South, which had been working for years to promote it as a concrete implementation of the notion of "climate justice".