The Green Climate Fund approved the RACINE agricultural programme on October 27, 2026, describing it as financing under its commitment to the Belém Call for the Congo Basin forests. The fund lists a loan of US$87,680,007.17 and a grant of US$9,742,223.02 for the programme in Cameroon. According to the signatories, the Belém Call itself was adopted in Libreville, Gabon, and launched at the COP30 world summit in Belém on November 6, 2025, alongside a pledge by international donors to mobilise more than US$2.5 billion for forest protection over the following five years.
According to the fund, RACINE is its first direct sovereign loan and its first national direct access investment in Central Africa, administered through Cameroon's Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development. Farmers are to receive electronic vouchers for agricultural inputs and agroforestry plans, and a “Community Window” is to help finance community reforestation and watershed restoration. An independent review is to trigger results-based payments from the Central African Forest Initiative. In addition, 2,000 agricultural extension specialists are to be trained; according to the fund, implementation of the programme as a whole has not yet begun. According to the fund, cocoa and coffee cultivation in Cameroon is a major driver of deforestation in the Congo Basin through slash-and-burn practices and plantation expansion. Irregular rainfall, drought and pests also threaten yields, it said. At the same time, producers risk exclusion from EU markets under the EU Deforestation Regulation.
From the Glasgow pledge to the Belém Call
According to a Carbon Brief review dated July 15, 2026, Britain, as host of COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, led an initiative against forest loss that included a joint pledge of at least $1.5 billion for Congo Basin countries by 2025. According to Carbon Brief, the joint target was met overall, but the British contribution remained relatively small because its deadline was 2029 rather than 2025. Through the Belém Call, the signatories say they also aim to reverse forest loss by 2030 and promote the subregion's sustainable development. The signatories cite deforestation, forest degradation, biodiversity loss, the effects of climate change, and economic and demographic pressure on the ecosystem as reasons. The Congo Basin stores more than 90.9 billion tonnes of carbon, according to World Bank figures reported by Ecofin Agency, and is, as Germany's federal development ministry writes, the world's second-largest contiguous tropical forest area after the Amazon.
How the money is to flow
According to the joint press release from the Élysée, donors commit to mobilising the funds pledged for the protection of the Congo Basin forests in addition to the resources to be mobilised by the Central African countries themselves. The statement lists signatories including Germany, Belgium, France, Norway and the United Kingdom, as well as the African Development Bank, the World Bank, the European Commission, the Global Environment Facility, the Climate Investment Funds and the Green Climate Fund. The signatories also agree on a joint mechanism for monitoring, mutual transparency and assessing results achieved against clear, shared and verifiable indicators. CAFI stresses in its draft strategy that it is not an operational directive, but sets out direction, principles and commitments; specific programme design rests with country programmes and decisions by the CAFI Executive Board.
What critics point out
As early as January 2026, members of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, which supports implementation of the Belém Call, warned, according to a Mongabay report, that the initiative must not fail as previous climate and conservation pledges had. In the Belém Call, the Central African signatories had already committed to land rights, inclusive governance and direct, fair and equitable access to financing for Indigenous peoples and local communities. Siemeni Kamtcheu Raoul Antoine, deputy coordinator of the civil society coalition for the Congo Basin, cited the low participation of senior officials at the adoption of the call and the lack of clear governance structures as early warning signs of possible failure. Joseph Itongwa pointed out that bureaucratic hurdles have so far made it difficult for Indigenous communities to access financing directly. He called for the Belém Call to include a mechanism like that of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which earmarks 20 percent of its funds for Indigenous peoples and local communities. The policy report published in November 2025 by the Grantham Research Institute also points out that the Central African Forest Initiative's Executive Board includes representatives of the ten donor countries and two UN bodies, but no representatives of the Congo Basin countries themselves; the Congo Basin Forest Partnership has permanent observer status there.
H2 Funding pledges, onward transfers and access requirements
The history of the Central African Forest Initiative itself shows how large the gap between deposits and onward transfers can become: according to its 2023 annual report, donors had deposited $748.8 million by then, but only $374.0 million had been transferred to 14 participating organisations. The British share of the COP26 pledge also showed a gap between the target and expenditure: of the £200 million targeted by 2029, only £39.8 million had been spent by 2024, according to Carbon Brief, before the government later cut the associated CBFA subprogramme, originally worth £90 million, by 79 percent. Separately, in March 2026, the World Bank approved $394.83 million for Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo through the Sustainable Congo Basin Forest Economies Program, with the aim of creating 220,000 jobs; the World Bank does not mention a link to the Belém Call in this statement.
In a position paper dated September 18, 2026, CAFI itself identifies what access to financing depends on: it is not automatic, but depends on eligibility, credible national measurement and robust, nationally endorsed implementation systems, as well as evidence that funds actually reach landscapes, communities and households. CAFI's draft strategy puts it similarly: direct payments for environmental services work only if land and resource rights are sufficiently clear, land-use plans define forest conservation areas, safeguards ensure legitimacy and fairness, and national monitoring systems can verify results. CAFI stated on September 18, 2026, that less than one-fifth of the financing intended for Indigenous peoples and local communities actually reaches them. The window for embedding safeguards before contracts were signed was open at that point, it said.