The Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), launched at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015, aims to support governments in the region as they implement reforms and enhance investments to address such challenges as poverty, food insecurity and climate change. These all put pressure on their tropical forests. 

Central Africa is home to the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest area with over 240 million hectares (ha). Although the annual rate of natural-forest loss is declining in Africa, the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment revealed an annual loss in the Central African region of about 3.1 million ha of natural forests in the last five years. Policy and governance reforms in the region are advancing, but efforts to conserve and sustainably use forests are still fragmented and underfinanced. 

The CAFI initiative is a joint collaboration between UNDP, FAO, the World Bank, six Central African countries and a coalition of donors, including the Kingdom of Norway, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The six participating Central African countries—Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo—will develop investment frameworks to support the sustainable use and conservation of their forest resources, notably through the implementation of REDD+ activities. 

This initiative works in close collaboration with the UN-REDD Programme and builds on the work of other initiatives in the region, such as the Congo Basin Forest Fund.