Working together to achieve a sustainable palm oil sector in Africa

Home

Proforest is a unique, non-profit group. We support companies, governments, civil society and other organisations to work towards the responsible production and sourcing of agricultural and forest commodities.

What we do

At Proforest we’re passionate about helping people produce and source agricultural and forest commodities responsibly. That’s why we support companies throughout supply chains to have positive social and environmental outcomes in the places where commodities are produced.

Our focus

Our work supports agricultural commodity production and sourcing that can deliver positive social and environmental outcomes. This means working with producers and supply chains to have positive impacts for the people and places where commodities are produced.

Working together to achieve a sustainable palm oil sector in Africa

The fourth regional meeting of the Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA) 2020 Africa Palm Oil Initiative (APOI) took place in Accra, Ghana on 17 May 2018, organised by Proforest in collaboration with the Government of Ghana.

The goal of the APOI is to develop a responsible palm oil sector that takes account of the ambitious development plans of countries in Africa, while addressing environmental targets for reduced deforestation, land use and greenhouse gases, and social indicators on issues such as land tenure and the rights of indigenous peoples.

APOI is led by 10 country teams from the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Cameroon. Each team is composed of representatives from government, civil society and the private sector. The work of the APOI is coordinated by Proforest, on behalf of TFA 2020, thanks to financial support from the UK’s Department For International Development through the Partnership for Forests Programme and from the Global Environment Facility through the Good Growth Partnership, via World Wildlife Fund.

The regional meeting welcomed around 85 participants from over 20 different countries – including Gita Sahryani, from Indonesia’s LTKL jurisdictional programme and Ivan Daro Valencia from the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development in Colombia, who gave a short presentation on the experience in Colombia of launching the Zero Deforestation Agreement for Palm Oil. There was a very strong representation from public, private and civil society sectors with a good gender balance and participation of indigenous groups and smallholder organisations, ensuring that the meeting supported the APOI’s aims to be inclusive.

In 2016 seven African governments publicly committed to placing sustainability and human rights at the heart of Africa’s oil palm sector when they signed the TFA 2020 Marrakesh Declaration at the UN Climate Change Conference in 2016. Since then, work to implement the Declaration has been driven forward by the APOI country teams.
The Regional Meeting aims to share lessons, experiences and progress from the country teams and to share experience with similar initiatives aimed at addressing deforestation from commodity supply chains – such as the Cocoa and Forest Initiative. It also aimed to connect the TFA 2020 community in West and Central Africa, and work together to build and strengthen public-private partnerships for sustainable and deforestation-free commodity production in the region.

Find out more

The APOI Regional Meeting took place during a week of TFA 2020 activities in Accra. View our visual summary of the week below.

What would you like to look for?

Working together to achieve a sustainable palm oil sector in Africa

Find out more

Policy

Our regions

Contact us