Lessons from last 30 years of commercial forestry investments #3

In Sub-Saharan Africa, sustainable planted forests can play a critical role in economic development and environmental recovery:

✅ They can have extended climate mitigation impact, reducing deforestation, restoring degraded lands and helping to decarbonise downstream industries such as construction.

✅ They are a key economic resource. By 2050, there will be 2 billion people living in Africa. As populations grow, sustainable planted forests can play a critical role in meeting the rising demand for wood, housing, food, energy, and jobs.

✅ They represent an opportunity for Sub-Saharan Africa to sustainably meet not just the growing regional demand for fuelwood and charcoal by reducing pressure on natural forests, but also the accelerating global demand for wood, projected to rise by 36% by 2050.

Over the last three decades, significant investments have gone towards developing new sustainable planted forests to try and realise the sector's potential.

But so far, commercial investments have largely underperformed and, while Sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to produce a surplus of wood, this production remains unable to reach higher value markets.

In our new study with Gatsby Africa and Criterion Africa Partners, we investigate the drivers of underperformance and, focusing on both industrial scale and smallholder forestry, draw out key lessons and opportunities to do things differently for the next generation of investors, development actors and governments.