The Tropical Forest Forever Facility, an initiative supported by the BRICS nations, aims to reward countries for preserving their forests. This presents a significant opportunity for African nations, provided they can effectively organize to participate.

The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), set for an official launch at COP30 and backed by the BRICS nations, could significantly change access to climate finance. With a $125 billion fund, this mechanism aims to reward tropical countries for continuous forest preservation, based on a flat rate of $4 per preserved hectare.

Unlike previous mechanisms such as REDD+, the TFFF introduces a more incentive-based approach. It rewards active conservation while penalizing degradation. Critically, it allocates 20 percent of its resources, up to $25 billion, directly to local and Indigenous communities.

For Africa, this initiative comes at a crucial time. The continent holds the world’s second-largest tropical forest, primarily concentrated in the Congo Basin, yet it receives limited international conservation funding. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the region obtains only 4 percent of global forest-related financing.

On paper, Africa is well-positioned to benefit from this new fund. The promise of direct access to resources for communities also addresses a long-standing demand from African civil society: preventing funds from being diluted through government channels or captured by intermediaries.

However, for this opportunity to materialize, Africa must be prepared. Currently, few countries possess the institutional, technical, or community-level capacity needed to develop eligible projects in time. For example, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP, 2023) indicates that only a handful of African countries have national forest monitoring systems robust enough to provide reliable and traceable data, a key criterion for conservation-linked financing. Additionally, the World Bank has noted that the complexity of land management frameworks, often marked by overlapping customary and legal rights, makes it difficult to apply international mechanisms uniformly.

Another challenge is the limited involvement of African actors in the mechanism’s design, which increases the risk of a model poorly suited to local realities. The BRICS conceived the TFFF without extensive consultation with African states, potentially overlooking specific contexts such as customary rights. Only South Africa participated in the negotiations, sidelining key players like the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC), the sole sub-regional body responsible for guiding, coordinating, and making decisions on forest conservation initiatives.

Nevertheless, the stakes are high. Pressure on African forests remains intense, driven by poverty, mining, extensive agriculture, reliance on charcoal, and infrastructure projects. Populations living in or near these forests continue to be largely excluded from the economic benefits of conservation due to a lack of transparent and suitable mechanisms.

In Africa, 60 percent of the population still depends on forests for their livelihoods. Wood remains the primary energy source for 80 percent of rural households, and 40 percent of household income comes from non-timber forest products such as fruits, medicinal plants, honey, and bushmeat.

Several environmental and climate organizations, including Greenpeace, have already warned that if funding is not quickly made accessible and eligibility criteria clarified, the TFFF risks repeating the same shortcomings as past mechanisms.

Olivier de Souza