The Africa Palm Oil Initiative Regional Meeting on Road to CoP27

Ten country-level commitments to sustainable growth and commodity development

The Africa Palm Oil Initiative is hosting its first in-person Regional Meeting since 2018, in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, on June 28 – 29. The seventh Regional Meeting since the APOI was founded in 2014 brings together representatives of ten countries from West and Central Africa, which account for more than 75% of Africa’s forests. 

A key objective of APOI is to share progress and lessons learned, which has built on the multi-stakeholder approach from the start. Each country platform will present progress, experiences and challenges on the implementation of national action plans. In addition, there will be discussion on the sustainability of the platforms, including national legislation and institutionalisation in each context, as well as the financing plans for each member country.

Many countries were present at CoP26 in Glasgow, where members shared statements of progress made in the five years since signing the Marrakesh Declaration for the Sustainable Development of Palm Oil, at CoP22 in 2016. A number of countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Edo State (Nigeria), are already taking a cross-commodity approach, ensuring principles of sustainable palm oil development are applied to other key commodities, such as rubber, cocoa and timber.

At CoP26 there was agreement to look at formally extending the Marrakesh Declaration to other agricultural commodities in Africa. This will be a focus for day two of the Regional Meeting, in a consultative process with member countries to agree on a draft text for an updated Declaration, with the aim of signing that at CoP27.