On 19 December, IRI DRC has held a strategic planning meeting with the CENCO and ECC Parliamentary Liaison Offices to create linkages with the lawmakers who have the ability to legislate policies on forests and indigenous peoples, including the caucus of Catholic MPs and the caucus of Protestant MPs and Senators. At the meeting, the four analysis notes constituting the advocacy tools developed by IRI DRC were presented to the participants. Based on the documents, the following advocacy actions were identified for the coming year: (i) production of a reference tool (maximum 5 pages) for each theme describing the context, the challenges and issues in the sector related to forest protection and sustainable development, the innovations supported, the risks related to the absence of a regulatory framework or its non-implementation; (ii) presentation of the reference framework by members of the IRI DRC Advisory Council; (iii) organisation of parliamentary dinners and advocacy visits by the IRI DRC leadership to decision-makers (President of the Republic, Prime Minister, Presidents of Parliamentary Chambers, etc.); (iv) training and awareness raising of parliamentarians on issues related to forest protection and the fight against climate change; and (v) support to the parliamentary monitoring team for the follow-up of laws in progress at the parliamentary level.
A timetable was established to accelerate the work before the start of the parliamentary session in March.
