Gabon's CAFI Payment: Africa's First Forest-Carbon Cheque, and Its Minister's Own Admission

In 2019, Gabon signed a $150 million, 10-year results-based agreement with the multi-donor Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), tying payments to independently reviewed reductions in deforestation and degradation, monitored via the national forest-surveillance system operated with satellite data from the Gabonese Space Agency (AGEOS).

In June 2021, after review of 2016-2017 results against a 2006-2015 baseline, Gabon received a first payment of $17 million at $5 per tonne of CO2 - the first time an African country was paid for measured forest-carbon performance.

The payment proved controversial: Global Forest Watch satellite data showed primary forest loss in 2016-2017 reaching its third-highest level since 2001, and Rainforest Foundation UK called it 'payment for non-performance'. In an interview with Bloomberg Green, Gabon's forests minister, Lee White, acknowledged the country was not in fact reducing deforestation and forest-degradation emissions.

Gabon's case shows a genuine gap between an internationally structured, satellite-backed verification framework and the underlying reality it is meant to certify - a caution for any programme that pays out on accounting methodology alone.

Read the full analysis: https://www.nicfi.no/2021/06/22/gabon-receives-first-payment-for-reducing-co2-emissions-under-historic-cafi-agreement/