Technical Support for Biodiversity Conservation and Community Well-being in Côte d'Ivoire

On a local level, the service provider will assist communities and local authorities in the process of implementing local agreements in areas bordering the Bossématié nature reserve. Local agreements will be a key element in the sustainable management of natural resources and the protection of biodiversity.

Once they have been negotiated, action plans will be drawn up, which will provide a framework for all measures implemented with the support of the project, particularly in the areas of agriculture, biodiversity and reforestation.

Regarding output 2 "Management of protected areas", the service provider will strengthen capacities of the conservation authority OIPR to improve their biomonitoring and surveillance systems, climate change adaptation, complaints management procedures and management of marine protected areas.

Furthermore, local authorities, public institutions and private individuals will be supported in their efforts to preserve forests or Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECM). This includes the creation of voluntary nature reserves and ecological corridors between protected areas and other natural or semi-natural areas.

While the activities in favour of the reinforcement of ecological connectivity are limited to the Bossématié region, assistance to OIPR will be provided in all project regions. The service provider will also implement output 3 "Agroecological innovations and agroforestry" in the Bossématié region.

In order to establish agroecological production systems, it will first provide technical support to local communities in identifying and developing agroecological production sites.

Thereafter, the service provider will design and implement an extensive program of awareness-raising and technical and organizational capacity-building to launch agroeco-logical production in these selected sites and to promote agroecological processing. Emphasis will be placed on the interests of women and women's cooperatives.

The contracting party will also support the development of agroforestry in rural communities in the Bossématié area. By responding to the need for reforestation, agroforestry rehabilitation of riverbanks, income diversification, improved soil fertility and zero deforestation cocoa farming, this package will build the technical capacity of farmers and local service providers in terms of agroforestry innovations.

Contributing to output 4, the service provider will strengthen the capacities of regional and national actors in terms of biodiversity protection.

In collaboration with relevant state entities, it will provide specialised expertise to communities and forest or reserve managers to help them leverage biodiversity and climate finance mechanisms such as payments for ecosystem services (PES), carbon markets or the Green Climate Fund.

To do so, the feasibility of PES projets is evaluated and technical guidance is provided to project owners throughout all stages of project development, up to the finalisation of financing agreements.

Furthermore, the service provider will assist relevant state institutions to implement and monitor the NDCs in the AFOLU sector and to further operationnalize the existing agroforestry MRV system, including the dissemination of emission reduction results on the dedicated platform.