What is a VPA?
A Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) is a legally binding trade agreement between the EU and a timber-exporting country outside the EU. A VPA aims to ensure that all timber and timber products destined for the EU market from a partner country comply with the laws of that country.
In addition to promoting trade in legal timber, VPAs address the causes of illegality by improving forest governance and law enforcement. A major strength of VPAs is that they look beyond trade to consider development and environmental issues.
Stakeholders in government, the private sector and civil society develop VPAs through a participatory process. A VPA is therefore a vehicle for addressing the needs of different stakeholders and for including many people who have never before had a voice in decision making.
VPAs are a key component of the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan of 2003. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of several tropical countries that are negotiating VPAs with the EU. Six more countries have ratified VPAs and are implementing the Agreements.
Key elements of a VPA
In countries where VPAs have already been signed, key elements include:
- A timber legality assurance system to verify that timber products are legal and can be issued with FLEGT licences
- Commitments to legal reforms, public disclosure of information and other improvements to forest governance
- A framework for overseeing, monitoring and evaluating implementation of the VPA and its economic, social and environmental impacts.
How a VPA promotes legal timber trade
A VPA partner country that has implemented a timber legality assurance system and other VPA commitments can issue verified legal timber products with FLEGT licences. The advantage of this is that FLEGT-licensed products automatically meet the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), which prohibits EU operators from placing illegally harvested timber and timber products on the EU market.
The EUTR entered into force in 2013. It requires EU operators to perform due diligence checks to ensure the timber products they place on the EU market are legal. FLEGT-licensed timber meets the due diligence requirements under the EUTR.
A VPA partner country can only issue FLEGT licences through a timber legality assurance system that the EU and the partner country have agreed on, developed and tested. Before a country can begin FLEGT licensing, the EU and the partner country must confirm that the country’s timber legality assurance system works as described in the VPA. Confirmation by the two parties means that the system is robust and will issue FLEGT licences only to legal timber products.
While FLEGT licensing is an important goal, it is not the end point of a VPA process. Governance, legislative and policy reforms, impact monitoring, improvements to the timber legality assurance system and other activities both precede and follow licensing.
Through progress on VPAs, the implementation of the EUTR and dialogues with other important timber markets, including China, the EU and the VPA partner countries are contributing to a growing global movement to address trade in illegal timber and timber products. Australia, the United States and Japan also seek to restrict the placing of illegal timber on their markets. The process to achieve FLEGT licences may therefore help VPA partner countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo meet the legality requirements of markets beyond the EU.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo-EU VPA
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the EU are negotiating the terms of the VPA through a cooperative process: both parties share the goal of fostering good forest governance and addressing illegality.
The VPA negotiations began in October 2010. During DRC’s presidential election in 2011, both parties agreed to suspend negotiations for eight months. Negotiations then continued but subsequent Government reshuffling in late 2013 resulted in an informal suspension of the process.
During this hiatus, dynamism in the DRC’s REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, plus the sustainable management of forests, conservation and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks) process brought continued progress towards FLEGT objectives.
The National REDD+ Framework Strategy and Investment Plan recognises improved forest governance and sustainable forest management as key pillars of REDD+ implementation. In the context of the Mai Ndombe Province Emission Reduction Program, the Government is testing a tailored legality approach and compliance standard for monitoring the activities of logging companies.
This approach could be scaled up to cover all companies operating in DRC, so as to directly inform forest policy developments as well as VPA negotiations. REDD+ support to the formalisation of artisanal logging and operationalisation of community forestry will also provide useful insights for the VPA negotiations. REDD+ work on joint independent monitoring and work on decentralising forest governance have also brought results important for FLEGT.
While political, security and economic stability remain elusive, the VPA process was re-energised from late 2016 to June 2017. Political uncertainty is limiting the scope of activities and longer-term planning, but the Technical Commission has updated its operating mandate and structure and dived into technical work on the legality definitions. Completed drafts of the legality definition for industrial forest concessions and other technical elements were produced during the first half of 2017.
In June 2017, the FLEGT Technical Commission held a FLEGT information day to consult on recent technical products with broader stakeholder groups.
And, as a representative, deliberative institution, the FLEGT Technical Commission is poised to play a central role in the development of the national Forest Policy and subsequent legal reform through the regional Central African Forest Initiative programme and others.
The VPA negotiations involve representatives of DRC civil society organisations, the private sector, government ministries and agencies, and indigenous peoples. As a result, the process fosters significant national ownership and stakeholder engagement, despite persistent challenges.
VPAs signed to-date have also included commitments to improve transparency, accountability, legislative clarity and other aspects of governance.
