CBFP 8 CCR Kinshasa - Facilitation Transfer (Kinshasa, DRC)

All members of CBFP are invited to attend the next meeting of the CBFP Regional Consultative Committee (CCR) to be held in Kinshasa, 27-20 September 2010 at the Hotel Memling. This follows an announcement made by the German Facilitation of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership which comes after formal confirmation issued by the Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism of the DRC.

Thematic focus will be on sustainable management of forest ecosystems of the dry zones, and forest plantations in the Congo Basin. In addition, CBFP facilitation will be passed to Canada. It is hoped that a majority of those who follow CBFP activities and who are able to actively contribute to the debates and discussion will attend the meeting.

By Peter Ngea

New Canadian CBFP Facilitator

Mr. Gaston Grenier, former Director General of CIDA's West Africa bilateral program has been appointed new facilitator to the Congo Basin Forest Partnership on behalf of the Canadian government. Mr Grenier, an agricultural engineer by training, has represented his country in a number of international bodies such as the FAO Committee on Agriculture, CGIAR, the OECD Sahel and West Africa Club, the Special Program for African Agricultural Researc.
After retiring from the Federal Public Service in 2003, Mr Grenier undertook a number of mandates, such as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Africa Rice Centre, or scientific advisor to the Canadian Space Agency on the TIGER initiative, which uses space technology to develop sustainable earth observation services for integrated water resource management in Africa. He is also acting as a scientific advisor to International Development Research Centre (IDRC) on the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund and to the Inter American Institute of Cooperation in Agriculture in support of the Haiti minister of agriculture to gather resources to recover from the 2010 earthquake.
Gaston Grenier who has spent many years overseas in Africa and Latin America is fluent in French, English and Spanish.

Story by Peter Ngea

New Regional Director of FSC Africa

The new Regional Director of FSC Africa Mr. Elie takes on his new challenges with 32 years of experience in natural resource management and outstanding efforts to promote responsible forestry in the Congo Basin. He is a familiar and agreeable person with logging companies and key government officials in the Congo Basin and beyond. The new Regional Director is also credited for creating timber trade links and exchanges between key European and some African countries in the domain of responsible forestry.
Mr. Hakizumwami will lead all activities of the FSC Africa Regional Office and the implementation of the FSC Africa Regional Strategy including supporting the development of National Initiatives in strategic countries in the region. As FSC’s official representative for the African continent, Mr. Hakizumwami will liaise with international organizations and processes active in the region and engage with government representatives on forest related matters.

He is joining FSC after 13 years of work in the Congo Basin where he assumed different key regional positions such as the Sustainable Use of Renewable Resources Initiative Specialist Group, the African Elephant Specialist Group, the Forestry Programme Regional Coordinator for WWF-Central Africa and the Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN) Regional Coordinator for Central Africa.