Côte d'Ivoire is committed to carrying out the second national forest inventory of its forest resources (woody or not) and wildlife in order to obtain a certain number of strategic information and elements useful for the continuation of public actions to ensure the sustainable management of these resources.
To do this, it launched a restricted call for tenders on 16 May 2018 in which ONF International (ONFI) participated. This contract was awarded to ONFI on July 12, 2018. ONFI is associated with IGN and IGN FI to implement the National Forest and Wildlife Inventory (IFFN). The contract between MINEF (project owner) and ONFI (project manager) was signed on 22 March 2019, the start-up advance (one third of the budget) was paid on 17 June 2019.
In order to ensure the implementation of this project, ONFI created a branch (ONF Côte d'Ivoire) on November 9, 2018, with a team dedicated to the preparation and implementation of this project.
After the signing of the service order, with pre-financing provided by ONFI, ONF-CI prepared the project through, in particular, the completion of the processes of selection and contracting of service providers (three technical operators (SODEFOR, OIPR, ANADER), two communication agencies, a university botany team, a wildlife expert, etc.). The technical preparation of the project was also carried out by the ONF-CI team: revision of the field manual (sampling plan, field protocols), new approach to pedology, preparation of training and deployment of inventory teams, monitoring and control of field operations, preparation and control of field operations, preparation and programming of communication/awareness campaigns, etc.
Following the delay in the start of the project and the health crisis (suspension of activities in April and May 2020), a request from the C2D Bilateral Technical Committee (CTB) of August 31, 2020 was made to AFD in order to obtain additional funds for the six-month extension of the IFFN project (end expected on June 30, 2021). The project owner and the project manager also signed an amendment to the initial contract on February 18, 2021 in order to extend the duration of the project until July 4, 2021.