Finding a green path for China and Africa?

China’s massively ambitious Belt and Road Initiative – its ‘silk road for the twenty-first century’ – is pushing a wave of state-backed and private financing for infrastructure projects deep into the lands and rural communities of developing countries. Potentially the biggest infrastructure project the world has ever seen, China’s initiative will have big consequences for African forests and the communities living in them. More Chinese companies in various shapes and sizes, doing business with Africa’s natural resources, are likely to follow pioneers like Mr Zheng. So, a shared understanding about what is really going on is urgently needed – especially among those in China and Africa who can influence the prospects for sustainability of these developments. Behind the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and big headlines about China-Africa cooperation, there are winners and losers, individual lives and trails in the forest.

Back in 2013, IIED with partners in China and Africa began exploring a new way of bringing attention to forest issues. The China Africa Forest Governance Platform was born. This sought to engage Chinese investors and enterprises, and government players and NGOs in tackling the illegal timber trade and in seizing opportunities for more sustainable Chinese investment in land-use sectors.

Since then, through much joint research, dialogue and targeted support to key decision-makers, those working with the platform have found that some changes with surprisingly big impacts can be made. Here is the story of some of these breakthroughs.

Huge impacts of investment and trade on African forests are not created by Chinese companies alone. Global politics and economics are playing out here. Local and foreign investment from other countries is having impact too, but it is the large and increasing scale of activity by Chinese companies – in forestry, agribusiness, mining and infrastructure – that warrant some special attention. So, while demand from China for African resources is huge, so too is the potential for investment. The big question then is, how could it be harnessed to work best for African lands and livelihoods?

At first sight, much Chinese investment seems socially and environmentally destructive. But those involved in the platform soon realised that much was assumed rather than really known. They found that perceptions have been recycled and these have fed prejudices. It turns out that many with opinions have lacked even basic information, while others simply lacked means of good communication. Once information and communication is improved, more interesting and varied reality – and more promising opportunities for collaboration – are quickly revealed.

Most of the Chinese companies involved in the timber trade are small-scale, and notoriously difficult to reach and influence with policies and regulations. As part of a project supported by the UK government to advance the platform’s agenda, IIED and partners set out to link African artisanal producers and small enterprises with Chinese companies and traders, with a view to fostering partnerships for more sustainable production and processing. They soon found that the constraints and risks to this can be worked on, piece by piece, in specific contexts.

In DRC, work to support the large number of small scale loggers – many of whom have traditionally worked under the radar of policy and legality – has enabled them to get organised. These new artisanal loggers associations – ACEFA in Kinshasa, and RECSIAM in Mai Ndombe province, for example – are committed to more sustainable practices and aim to strike a better deal with Chinese timber traders. 

Several of the largest forest concession-owning companies in Central Africa have stated their intentions to invest in integrated local value-adding sustainable forest product business. Under collaboration agreements with IIED’s project partner WWF, work has continued with three companies in Cameroon which export some of their timber to China, to get them prepared for independent third party legality audits and legality certification, and to strengthen commitment to move to sustainability certification. Work has also focused on promoting the Responsible Timber Exchange platform as a tool to improve accountability, screen out the illegal timber trade and stimulate lesson sharing between certified companies and non-certified ones. 

In Uganda, Chinese companies in the forestry, agribusiness and roads sectors were persuaded to take part in a series of dialogue events with NGOs and government, about the findings of analyses of their current practices. Some of the Chinese companies had also produced a responsible investment report, and this too provoked debate. This was the first time open multi-stakeholder discussions about the impacts and solutions to problems of Chinese investments in land-use sectors were made possible. Several announcements of action by the Ugandan government followed – on clarifying key policies for more socially and environmentally investments, and on preventing investments on inappropriate lands – and commitments to social responsibility were made by six Chinese companies with land use investments. The research and dialogue process also revealed the crucial role of the Chinese embassy in developing investments – and project partner ACODE is continuing to work with the embassy, as well as companies and government to ensure that some of these commitments become reality.

The Chinese government may also be encouraged to back more aid projects in forestry. To date, this has been limited to short training courses in China for African foresters. Chinese project partners studied African participants’ experience with these courses and presented recommendations for change. These have since been taken up in national development cooperation plans, and the Chinese Academy of Forestry has been in communication with several African government agencies on planning new forestry development cooperation based on joint needs assessment, context-specific design, and building organisations’ capacity to support sustainable forestry.

Only time will tell if these apparent breakthroughs are robust. Further initiative is certainly needed, and the new ‘Silk Road to the African Forests’ will surely be a rocky one. But this is a story so far of creative leaps in understanding between people who were previously unconnected, and if such leaps continue to be made, big gains for forests and livelihoods could follow.