Benchmarking national legislation against voluntary certification schemes

Legal compliance is a vital first step to reducing forest loss and helping businesses meet their sustainability commitments. This programme promotes legal compliance as a first step to demonstrating compliance with national and international responsible sourcing and production commitments, whilst promoting smallholder and gender inclusion. The programme benchmarked national legislation against voluntary certification schemes and private sector led tools to develop an understanding of where legislation supports and aligns with voluntary commitments. 

This programme was implemented in Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia with primary focus on the forestry, oil palm and cocoa supply chains. 

Read country specific legality guidance notes. Link to publications: https://proforest.net/en/publications/africa-legality-guidance)