Data-based win-win solutions for agriculture and forestry in Côte d'Ivoire
With almost half of the working population employed in the agriculture industry, Côte d’Ivoire’s economy is greatly affected by climate change and the multiple weather variations it brings. In addition, the country’s ever-expanding agriculture is one of the main drivers of deforestation that can further aggravate the effects of climate change. In order to reverse this trend and find and implement win-win solutions to both forestry and agriculture, the Government of Côte d’Ivoire is taking important data-driven steps to address the problems posed by climate change. In these efforts, the country recognises the effectiveness of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) as part of the country’s efforts to achieve their target nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement.
Côte d'Ivoire submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015, which later became their first NDC when the government ratified the Paris Agreement in October 2016. Article 5 of the Paris Climate Agreement recognises REDD+ as a positive incentive mechanism, as well as an important mitigation action in the forestry sector. Cote d’Ivoire is undertaking actions to slow down deforestation and has achieved several accomplishments during the country’s REDD+ preparation phase (2014-2018), through improving data on deforestation, and focusing on building sustainable supply chains through agro-forestry. The work has been supported by various initiatives, including the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), the UN-REDD Programme, the French Development Agency (FDA) and the EU REDD Facility. The country has adopted an integrated and participatory National REDD+ Strategy and validated Safeguards or Safeguards Information System roadmap (SIS). In January 2017, Côte d'Ivoire successfully submitted its Forest Reference Emission Level (FREL) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with its modified version published in November 2017. Development and delivering of all the activities mentioned above were based on robust and transparent data provided by the country’s National Forest Monitoring System (NFMS).