(Business in Cameroon) - The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) informs that thanks to its FAO-EU Flegt program, 2000 m³ of wood from legal sources were supplied to Cameroonian SMEs between 2019 and 2020. This program was initiated in 2016 to ensure that woods supplied on the domestic market are from legal sources.

To achieve this, the program implemented various initiatives to formalize the collaboration between SMEs and operators with legal rights to supply woods in Cameroon. In the framework of these initiatives, thirteen supply contracts were signed between 2017 and 2020 by small operators and firms that hold exploitation licenses on communal and community forests.

Also, memoranda of understanding were signed by some of these SMEs and industrialists for the supply of legal timber, in collaboration with the Groupement de la filière bois au Cameroun (GFBC) and the Cameroonian federation of secondary wood processors Professionals in Secondary Wood Processing Fecaprobois. An example of the memoranda is the agreement signed by the second wood processing cooperative Coop-CA Extraboicam and a forestry company for the supply of 50 m³ of legal industrial timber.

According to FAO, the FAO-EU Flegt program is still supporting the Cameroonian private sector to boost the latter’s involvement in the implementation of the FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreements signed on October 6, 2010, by Cameroon and the European Union (EU) and ratified by the state of Cameroon on August 9, 2011.

Sylvain Andzongo