World Bank Funds Congo Basin Bioeconomy to Drive Green Growth and Jobs

The World Bank Group has approved the Sustainable Congo Basin Forest Economies Program (SCBFEP), a multi-phase initiative designed to transform forest economies in Central Africa by integrating sustainable stewardship with economic development. The program aims to unlock climate and livelihood benefits from the Congo Basin, the world’s second-largest tropical forest biome, for the 60 million people living in and around the region.

Phase 1 of the operation, funded by the International Development Association (IDA), involves an investment of $394.83 million. This initial stage is part of a larger multi-phase program totaling $1.02 billion. The project focuses on three primary countries: the Republic of Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Republic of Congo (RoC).

Economic and Environmental Objectives

The SCBFEP marks a shift in forest investment by moving beyond a conservation-only approach to establish economic conditions that make stewardship sustainable. The program intends to improve forest management and strengthen value chains to generate 220,000 jobs across the participating nations.

Key environmental and operational targets for the first phase include:

• Placing nearly 8 million hectares under sustainable management.
• Reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions by 17.6 million tCO2e.
• Increasing the share of legally processed wood by 15%.
• Supporting community forest enterprises, agroforestry systems, and SME processing zones.

The initiative specifically targets marginalized communities, indigenous peoples, and forest-dependent populations. To support local entrepreneurship, the program will provide training, finance, and value chain infrastructure to more than 500 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and 20,000 people, 40% of whom are women. Over 7,000 youth will receive support to enter entrepreneurship.

The Value of the Congo Basin Ecosystem

The program follows a World Bank report released on October 20, 2025, which detailed the immense economic value of the region’s forests. The report found that the value of forest ecosystem services in the Congo Basin rose from $590 billion in 2000 to $1.15 trillion in 2020. During that same period, the total forest asset value increased from $11.4 trillion to $23.2 trillion.

The report highlighted a significant imbalance, noting that while the forests generate over $1 trillion in global ecosystem services, more than 90% of that value is not fully captured by the local economies.

Forest management and governance vary across the basin. Gabon and the Republic of Congo have embedded sustainability into national planning, maintaining relatively strong biodiversity indicators and low deforestation rates. Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea are currently strengthening governance and piloting policies to integrate ecosystem values. Conversely, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic face pressures from informal logging, mining, agriculture, and rapid population growth.

Strategic Diversification and Future Outlook

The World Bank’s strategy involves integrating forests into macroeconomic planning to support climate finance and economic diversification. This includes shifting the development narrative toward long-term resilience through several specific opportunities:

• Value-added processing of non-timber forest products.
• Community-based ecotourism.
• Forest monitoring.
• Results-based climate financing.

By building these economic conditions, the SCBFEP seeks to ensure that the 60 million people in the Congo Basin, who have historically been bypassed by economic growth, can access real jobs and sustainable opportunities.