CIFOR-ICRAF
Global climate finance has expanded since the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement, but major gaps remain—especially in funding for developing countries and adaptation. The Congo Basin, despite its global importance for carbon storage and climate regulation, receives only about 4% of tropical forest finance due to weak institutional capacity, irregular funding, and mechanisms poorly suited to its low deforestation context. Communities and Indigenous Peoples remain largely excluded.
Recent initiatives aim to change this. COP30 introduced the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, offering USD 4 billion annually for conserving low-deforestation forests. The Baku-to-Belém roadmap seeks to scale climate finance to USD 1.3 trillion by 2035, while the Belém Call to Action mobilized over USD 2.5 billion for the Congo Basin and emphasized community-led, rights-based conservation and blended finance.
Despite rising global climate finance, most flows still go to East Asia, Europe, and North America. Sub-Saharan Africa receives only about 3.5%, and Congo Basin countries under USD 2 billion—highlighting persistent global inequities.
Duties and responsibilities
The Consultant will be responsible for carrying out the following tasks:
- Climate Finance Mapping and Analysis
- Update of information on bilateral and multilateral funding flows
- Analysis of other sources of funding (philanthropic and others)
- Develop and consolidate an evidence-based dataset on climate finance flows.
- Assessment of Financial Mechanisms
- Analyze and classify financial instruments, including grants, loans, blended finance, REDD+, carbon markets, guarantees, and emerging instruments.
- Evaluate their scale, accessibility, suitability, and effectiveness for addressing mitigation, adaptation, and biodiversity needs in the Congo Basin.
- Identification of Systemic Barriers
- Diagnose institutional, fiduciary, governance, MRV, and procedural barriers limiting access to climate finance in the Congo Basin.
- Conduct comparative assessments with other tropical forest regions.
- Analysis of COP26 and COP30 Implications
- Examine the implications of Article 6, REDD+, results-based finance, and post-2025 climate finance frameworks for operational readiness and financing opportunities of Congo Basin countries.
- Evaluation of Sovereign and Catalytic Financing Options
- Assess the feasibility of sovereign mechanisms and innovative finance instruments (e.g., debt-for-nature swaps, green and peatland bonds, trust funds).
- Identify leverage opportunities to attract large-scale international finance.
- Validation and Regional Ownership
- Lead and support the co-design of a regional validation workshop to present findings.
- Facilitate stakeholder engagement to ensure strong regional ownership across governments, regional institutions, donors, and civil society.
- Development of a Regional Roadmap
- Prepare a practical and sequenced roadmap with priority reforms, responsible actors, timelines, and financing pathways to address systemic gaps and access barriers.
- Policy and Institutional Reform Recommendations
- Formulate an agreed set of policy and institutional recommendations aimed at strengthening coordination, fiduciary systems, conservation trust funds, safeguards, MRV capacity, and access modalities to climate finance.
- Strengthening Equity and Inclusion
- Propose pathways to enhance access for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), including improved benefit-sharing mechanisms and simplified access channels.
- Support mechanisms to improve coordination among COMIFAC countries and partners.
Key Responsibilities (Deliverables)
- Prepare an Inception Report outlining methodology, workplan, timelines, data sources, and stakeholder mapping.
- Produce an Interim/Progress Report with preliminary findings.
- Develop a Draft Final Assessment Report with comprehensive analysis and recommendations.
- Submit a Final Assessment Report incorporating all feedback.
- Prepare Regional Validation Workshop materials, including agenda, concept notes, and presentations.
- Develop a Regional Roadmap detailing priority actions.
- Produce a Policy Brief summarizing key recommendations.
Education, knowledge and experience
• PhD in forestry economy, natural resource and environmental economics, or related field
• A minimum of 14 years of experience, including field activities in central Africa on forest and peatlands economics, climate finance mechanisms to support forest and peatlands
• Experience with major stakeholders, including multi-stakeholders workshop organization
• Excellent in spoken and written French and English.
• Proven experience in the field of economy, econometry, and his relation to logging, forest, biodiversity and internationally traded agricultural commodities that are risks for biodiversity (cocoa,), etc.…
• Excellent knowledge of central Africa forestry and peatlands issues
• Good publication record
Terms and conditions
• Duration: 06 months • Level of Effort: 15 working days per month • Location: Home-based consultancy with virtual coordination meetings. Occasional interaction with the CIFOR Cameroon Country Office (Yaoundé) may be required. • Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications no later than : 19 march 2026 • Applications must be sent by email to: cifor-cameroon@cifor-icraf.org • The subject line must read: Etude Financiere • The application must be submitted as a single PDF document named:
- A detailed motivation letter outlining relevant experience.
- An updated Curriculum Vitae (CV).
- Evidence of previous relevant work (publications, modelling outputs, portfolio, reports, or links to projects).