By SCM International Desk I Wednesday, Sept 23, 2025
NEW YORK — As global efforts to halt deforestation remain dangerously off track, a coalition of African governments is pioneering a new wave of domestic and international financing mechanisms, asserting leadership in a space long defined by stalled pledges from wealthier nations.
According to the first Progress Report of the Forest Finance Roadmap—released Wednesday at the Forest & Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP) Forest Finance Day during Climate Week NYC—African leadership in Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Gabon is demonstrating how innovative, country-led models can help close a staggering $66.8 billion annual global forest finance gap.
Global forests currently receive less than 1% of international climate finance, despite representing approximately one-fifth of the world’s cost-effective climate mitigation potential. Against this backdrop of global underinvestment, African nations are shifting from passive recipients of aid to proactive designers of sovereign environmental finance.
Reimagining Forest Economics Across Africa
Africa holds approximately 663 million hectares of forest, representing 16% of the global total. The continent’s approach to preserving these ecosystems is increasingly being integrated directly into core national economic strategies and sovereign budgets.
Ethiopia: Facing an estimated $4.3 billion in annual losses due to land degradation, Ethiopia is allocating 0.5% to 1% of its federal budget—roughly $40 million to $80 million annually—toward its Green Legacy and Landscape Restoration Fund.
This sovereign commitment has enabled the country to leverage hundreds of millions of dollars in international concessional co-financing. In August, Ethiopia also endorsed the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment, strengthening legal protections for Indigenous Peoples and local forest communities.
Kenya: Combining external resources with domestic spending, Kenya secured $229 million in new external funds, anchored by a $200 million World Bank operation and a $29.2 million Green Climate Fund grant for the Lake Region.
Domestically, the government increased its 2025/26 forestry allocation by $38.7 million, maintaining a $143.8 million commitment for 2026/27 as part of a broader pipeline to mobilize $10 billion for the forest bioeconomy by 2030.
Nigeria: Unveiling its Securing Nigeria’s Forest Future Country Package—set for an international launch at the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye—Nigeria has established a government-led platform designed to channel private investment, blended finance, and carbon markets directly into national biodiversity targets.
Gabon and the Congo Basin: As part of the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), Gabon is advancing results-based finance models. CAFI is building a $290 million Payments for Ecosystem Services pipeline, aiming to mobilize up to $2 billion by 2035 across the Congo Basin. The program targets 7.8 million beneficiaries, guaranteeing that at least 50% of financial flows directly reach local farmers, communities, and Indigenous Peoples.
A Paradigm Shift Ahead of COP32
This structural pivot is extending across the continent. Côte d’Ivoire recently launched Africa’s first Sustainability-Linked Finance Framework, securing a €433 million sovereign loan, while Uganda is piloting models to integrate forest resilience into sovereign credit analysis.
”One year on, the Forest Finance Progress Report provides a clearer picture of where finance is flowing, and where it is not,” said Emelyne Cheney, Director of the FCLP Secretariat. “Pressures on forests are intensifying… Forests cannot be an afterthought in the international climate agenda—they need to remain at the center of it.”
With Ethiopia set to host COP32 in Addis Ababa in 2027, African leaders are positioning themselves not as petitioning jurisdictions, but as global architects of functional climate finance. The primary challenge now remains whether international markets and donor nations will match the speed and scale of deployment required to reverse global forest loss by 2030.