NewsDemocratic Republic of Congo joins INBAR
INBAR’s 50th Member State is home to one of the world’s largest carbon sinks, the Congo rainforest.
On 1 March 2023, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) formally acceded to the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization (INBAR), becoming INBAR’s 50th Member State.
One of Africa’s largest countries, the DRC is home to a vast array of biodiversity and exceptional natural resources, including bamboo and rattan. Located in Central Africa, much of the DRC’s territorial borders overlap with the Congo rainforest. As a massive carbon sink, this rainforest has been called the “lungs” of the planet, storing even more carbon than the Amazon.
INBAR has a long history working across Central Africa. INBAR has endeavored in the region to enhance incomes, livelihoods and the adaptive capacities of African smallholder farmers, women and youth to climate change by upscaling and increasing their participation in climate-smart bamboo value chains as part of the Inter-Africa Bamboo Smallholder Farmers Livelihood Development Programme. Working as a partner organization in The Restoration Initiative, INBAR has also helped restore degraded soils across Cameroon using bamboo and other native, non-timber forest products. And only last year, INBAR joined the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, helping bring bamboo into the fight for safeguarding Central Africa’s forestland.
However, to date, no inventory has been done on the status of bamboo and rattan in the DRC, though six species of bamboo and several rattan species have been reported. This has been identified as an area for future project work in the country.
The Government of the DRC acknowledges the untapped potential of bamboo as a tool for socio-economic development and environmental protection in the country. Increased project scope and outreach activities carried out by INBAR in the Central African region can now deliver benefits to users and producers in the DRC.
In October 2021, the INBAR Council approved the DRC to be an Observer, and subsequently, the Government of the DRC undertook the necessary process for legal approval as required by the legislature to become an official Member State of INBAR. On 24 February 2023, the President of the DRC H.E. Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo signed the Instrument of Accession, finalizing the accession process and conferring INBAR Member State status upon the DRC.
We welcome the Democratic Republic of the Congo to INBAR!
Find out more about INBAR Membership here.
