Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) with the purpose of promoting sustainable forest management of tropical forests and timber trade has developed a tropical timber program. One of the certification programs that are operational under this tropical timber program is the Congo Basin Program (CBP). The main objective of this program is to increase the area of FSC certified forests by 4 million ha in the Congo Basin (Cameroon, Gabon, Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo).
The Congo Basin Program will run from March 2011 until December 2015. Key partners of the
CBP include WWF/GFTN, ICCO and FSC Netherlands.
Objectives
(Improved) certification objectives
– The main objective of the CBP is to achieve an additional 4 million ha of certified natural forest;
– For those concessions that are already FSC certified, the objective is to achieve improvements on the biological and/ or social issues for 1.5 million ha where the aim is to reduce the number of non-compliances (identified in the last audit report) by at least 50%;
Market objectives
– Enhance local processing by 25% for 5 companies;
– Establish 5 (semi-)commercial partnerships between community foresters and timber companies;
Enabling Environment objectives
– Capacity building in Congo Basin region through NGO buddy-system;
– The CBP has divided their certification implementation activities in two rounds. Prerequisite for continuation of the program into the second is that a regional/ national FSC standard has been developed. The second round is foreseen to commence in the first quarter of 2013. The CBP envisages stimulating the further development and implementation of national/ a regional FSC standard(s);
– Pilot PEFC;
– Good example FSC certification in DRC.
Service Providers
This tender is meant for organisations and individuals who want to become partners of the Congo Basin Program to provide one or more services to concession holders supporting them in their efforts to become certified, improve existing certification, or achieve market goals.
Approved and preferred suppliers
The Congo Basin Program is looking for two categories of partners.
One category is called the preferred service providers. These are the organisations who want to contribute to the programme by providing services and or funding. A concession holder can obtain services from these suppliers and needs to contribute 40% (or 65% in case of improved certification) to the cost of these services. 10% are covered by the CBP and 50% (or 25% in case of improved certification) is provided by the preferred service provider.
The other category, approved service providers, is made up of organisations that can supply technical or organisational support but need to be funded. The concession holder will initially pay for the service and is subsequently reimbursed 50% of the costs by the fund.
Last date for submission of applications is July 31, 2011
For more information and details, please visit this link.