A workshop in Brazzaville brought together the public administration (Ministry of Forestry Economy, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Labor and Social Security), the private sector (AITBT, IFO, Thanry-Congo), parliamentarians (national assembly and senate), justice professionals (magistrates, lawyer), police, and civil society organizations, to discuss and exchange around the implementation of an independent External Forest Monitoring (IFM).
Known by its French acronym ‘SNOIE’ (Système Normalisé d’Observation Indépendante Externe) is a set of monitoring processes for the exploitation of natural resources based on an international standard; including observation, verification, communication and lobbying. It consists of documenting and denouncing violations linked to the exploitation of natural resources, monitoring and disseminating the decisions of the competent authorities.
Thirty stakeholders participated in a two-day awareness workshop organised in Brazzaville aimed to inform and educate stakeholders on Independent External Forest Monitoring (IFM) and the process of developing a standardized system SNOIE based on ISO 9001: 2008 updated to ISO 9001: 2015.
Lilian Laurin BARROS, Project Manager and Permanent Secretary of CJJ in the Republic of Congo reported on the recommendations emerging from the two days of discussions and exchanges with the various stakeholders at the level of Parliamentarians; forest administration; civil society and other stakeholders. Read more on the CV4C website.
The future stages of development of SNOIE-Congo were presented, including:
- Testing, improvement and validation of the SNOIE-Congo through: adaptation or development of tools and acquisition of work equipment; NGO training; pre-validation; testing and improving the system; system validation and skill upgrading.
- The implementation of SNOIE-Congo: the realization of external observation missions; training of internal auditors and support for management review; the validation of the skills of the internal auditors and the carrying out of the external audit.
The workshop was supported by the project ‘Strengthening forest monitoring and law enforcement in the Congo Basin / CV4C – FGMC’, funded by the European Union and DFID, and organised by the NGO Comptoir Juridique Junior (CJJ), in partnership with the Centre for International Development and Training (CIDT), at Edmond Hôtel de Brazzaville.
