Kikwit, August 6th, 2025 (CPA).- The progress of the Forest Investment and Savannah Restoration Program (Pifores) was the focus of the first meeting of the provincial steering committee for this project, launched on Wednesday in Kikwit by the governor of Kwilu, in the south-west of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
« We are gathered here today to review the progress of the project since the last steering committee meeting (COPIL) held last November. I would like to express my deep gratitude to all our stakeholders for their valuable collaboration in achieving these initial results. The members of this committee have worked actively for six hours to assess the progress of the project, the memorandum of understanding and the recommendations for adjustments, » has said Philippe Akamituna, provincial governor. He has on this occasion thanked the Head of State for his vision of establishing DRC as a country that can provide solutions to climate issues, given its immense forest resources.
For his part, Alex Yenge, an environmental specialist, speaking on behalf of the national project coordinator, emphasised the importance of this meeting: « The first meeting of this year is mainly devoted to reviewing the progress of activities, identifying difficulties and, above all, jointly identifying the strategic directions that will be taken into account at the second meeting to be held next November, as well as sharing the memorandum of understanding approved by the World Bank and the complaint management mechanisms, » he has emphasised. He argued that Pifores is a Congolese government program consisting of five components, including land and natural resource management planning, the development of sustainable agroforestry and energy value chains, and the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the project aimed at improving forest landscape management and strengthening community livelihoods in the project areas, within the framework of the World Bank’s 2022-2026 country partnership.
“It will run for seven years in the western and central provinces of DRC with a total budget of US$300 million”, has said the source. Around 50 participants, including members of the National Coordination Unit and the provincial branch, provincial ministers, territorial administrators, civil society, statutory and technical members of the steering committee, and sectorial state services took part in the meeting. The ceremony was organised by the Forest Investment Program Coordination Unit (UC-PIF) under the leadership of the General Secretariat for the Environment.