First steering committee meeting – ADEFAC project

The steering committee of the Support project to develop continuing education for the forest and wood industry sector in Central Africa (ADEFAC), in its interim composition, has met for the first time last Wednesday the 23^rd of September 2020. The meeting was held by videoconference from 9h00 until 12h50 and was facilitated by ATIBT and RIFFEAC.

The steering committee is installed at the start of the project and meets once a year. It has a strategic as well as practical function. Its mandate is to:

• Guarantee the strategic and political orientations of the project
• Stay informed about the progress made by the project
• Value the coherence in between the activities and the objectives and logical context of the project
• Validate annually the technical and financial monitoring reports
• Monitor, orient and validate the planning and budget of the activities
• Monitor and verify the application of all recommendations.

Mrs Louisette FOUGA, representative of Mr. Raymond NDOMBA NGOYE, Executive secretary of COMIFAC, Dr. Claude KACHAKA SUDI KAIKO, Regional coordinator of RIFFEAC, Mr. Benoit JOBBE-DUVAL, General director of ATIBT, successively pronounced their opening and welcome speeches.

All the project management documents, which are the Manual of procedures, the Technical and financial implementation program document, the Procurement plan, the Annual budgeted technical implementation plan 2020, and the first Technical and financial implementation report, which had previously been sent to the steering committee members, were presented one by one by the members of the Technical project implementation team. After a series of questions, exchange, and discussions, each of the documents were validated by raising hands.

The main resolution of the meeting was the validation of all project management documents. Two recommendations were pronounced, the first concerned the modification of the full name of UFIGA in all the documents, and the second to pay a particular attention to the piloting and implementation of the activities in DRC, where none of the members of the project implementation team is permanently based.

The next activities of the project implementation team consist of the organization of meetings with stakeholders and potential beneficiaries in Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and DRC, to unfold and explain the project objectives and activities.

The team members will also visit forest and wood industry companies to complete the profession cartography, by filling out together so called profession-skills cards, which will constitute one of the bases to define thematic priorities for continuing education.