The present study was drafted under the overall leadership of Vera Songwe, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in close collaboration with Hanan Morsy, Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist at ECA, and with guidance provided by Jean-Paul Adam, Director of Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resources Management Division at ECA. The formulation of the standardized and harmonized protocol was supervised by Nassim Oulmane, Chief of the Green and Blue Economy Section at ECA, and Louis Mitondo Lubango, Environmental Affairs Officer, Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resources Management Division. Maxim Lobovikov provided detailed input to facilitate the development of the protocol.
Key reasons for the continent’s failure to attract financing to support its carbon sequestration efforts include African countries’ limited institutional capacity to manage vibrant carbon markets that can stimulate public and private sector investment, the low prices paid for forest carbon sequestration, and weak carbon market integrity. Building institutional capacity and market integrity can help African countries design more effective carbon pricing policies. Those policies should support the socioeconomic and environmental development of African countries and address their global climate commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change and relevant commitments made by States at meetings of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. The present study has been drafted with a view to addressing those challenges by facilitating the development of a standardized and harmonized protocol on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that provides for the harmonization of carbon emission accounting, verification, and reporting mechanisms. The study aims to support carbon market integrity, bolster institutional capacity, and boost private investment in inclusive green and blue economies in Congo Basin Climate Commission countries.
