ObjectivesFund scope
Recognized as a biodiversity hotspot, Liberia has an estimated forest cover of 6.6 million hectares, which is 69% of its total landmass. However, despite the global and national significance of the country’s biodiversity, as well as several ongoing conservation initiatives, people living in Liberia are faced with threats to existing forest resources like extensive logging, commercial tree crop plantation, and slash and burn agriculture/shifting cultivation.
Such factors are causing the country's forests to be progressively degraded, not only leading to negative environmental and socioeconomic growth but also affecting administrative capacities to effectively respond to climate change. In most rural forest areas, jobs are scarce and local populations rely on subsistence farming and hunting, and have limited access to quality social infrastructure. Effective forest conservation projects require viable and sustainable economic alternatives to using forest resources to compensate for losses incurred by forest dependent communities.
In response, stakeholders of the Liberia CFPM have harnessed the capacity of the United Nations system in Liberia to actively promote and work towards sustainable forest management in Liberia. Initiatives focus on improving the governance of community forest management bodies, building the capacities of forest regulatory institutions, empowering national CSOs/NGOs and forest and farm producer organizations, scaling natural resources management pilots, and promoting sustainable livelihood incentives for forest fringe communities. Target communities/inhabitants are located in the forest-rich southeast and northwestern parts of the country (Gbarpolu, Grand Cape Mount, Lofa, Grand Gedeh, River Gee, Sinoe, and Rivercess).
Grounded in United Nations strategies for Liberia, stakeholders promote forest maintenance, wildlife conservation, and biodiversity through three recovery outcomes: diversified livelihoods that respond to environmental shocks and stresses, increased economic engagement of youth, women and people living with disabilities, and the sustainable use of local environment and forest resources to achieve economic and conservation outcomes.
The CFPM joint programme strategy emphasizes building long-term resilience with a comprehensive and transformational view that maximizes local participation. The emphasis on local engagement benefits communities financially, enhances economic returns and incentivizes participation in forest conservation.
Strategic action and theory of change
Joint programme stakeholders promote a multi-sector approach, coordination, and build on existing coordination mechanisms to ensure the sustainable mainstreaming of forest management issues. Based on strengthening local institutions and establishing local level support systems (e.g., regional task forces), established local support systems are not just a means for assisting forest management and community forestry—they are active players in shaping national sector processes and planning, and in finding and implementing effective solutions.
The CFPM covers four components:
- Enabling policy, governance framework and institutional capacity for CFM.
- Promote effective community-based management in target areas.
- Create and strengthen resilient, low-emission land management, equitable, non-timber forest product smallholder value chains through sustainable business development of forest and farm producers, and their organizations (e.g., cooperatives).
- Knowledge management, communication and awareness, gender mainstreaming, and monitoring and evaluation.
A rapid analysis of barriers to the maintenance of “healthy” community forests in Liberia clarifies that there are many enabling and incapacitating factors that influence the ability and willingness of key influencers to advance the community forestry agenda in Liberia. The CFPM is designed to remove identified barriers and create an enabling environment for the implementation of community-based sustainable forest management.
By the end of the programme, institutions, communities, and other stakeholders can ensure continuity to activities undertaken by the project that address forest degradation, combat desertification, ensure the flow of ecosystem services and, ultimately, reduce the pressure on forest resources to allow for the rehabilitation of native vegetation. Management plans and agreements involved communities will benefit directly from environmental gains.
Another central aspect of the programme is gender equality and mainstreaming at the institutional and community levels. Stakeholders promote the participation of women, strengthening their role in planning and decision-making, and improving productivity, incomes, and living conditions.
> $55M 
$55M - $25M
$25M - $5M
< $5M
