The Democratic Republic of the Congo combines an old but durable forest-law base with a new carbon-market regime. Its 2002 Forest Code (Loi n° 011/2002) still defines "le régime applicable à la conservation, à l'exploitation et à la mise en valeur des ressources forestières sur l'ensemble du territoire national," including forest classification, cadastral and consultative-council structures. President Tshisekedi promulgated Ordonnance-loi n° 26/016 on 7 September 2026, the country's first comprehensive carbon-market legal regime, establishing a sovereign national carbon registry, Article 6 conformance, and benefit-sharing provisions for local and Indigenous Pygmy communities. The DRC's current NDC (CDN2.0, submitted October 2021) raised its mitigation target from 17% in 2015 to 21% by 2030 against business as usual, 2% unconditional and 19% conditional, spanning energy, agriculture and land-use sectors, at an estimated implementation cost of USD 48.68 billion.
Projects
Bboxx DRC solar home systems (Gold Standard PoA)
Operating in DR Congo since 2017, distributing clean energy, clean cooking and smartphones.
Congo Basin Peatlands (Cuvette Centrale)
The world's largest tropical peatland complex, a 30-billion-tonne carbon store straddling the two Congos.
EcoMakala-Virunga
WWF-led tree plantations supplying legal, sustainable charcoal to relieve deforestation pressure on Virunga National Park.
Efficient and Clean Cooking Stoves for Households in the Democratic Republic of Congo
A Gold Standard project distributing highly efficient cookstoves, sold by BURN Manufacturing.
FOREST Program clean cooking results-based financing
A World Bank-backed results-based financing programme for clean cooking access in the DRC.
Ibi Batéké Carbon Sink Plantation
DR Congo's first registered CDM forestry project, afforesting degraded Batéké savanna for fuelwood and carbon.
Isangi REDD+ Project
Avoided-deforestation carbon project in two former logging concessions on the Congo River near Isangi, Tshopo.
Kivu-Kinshasa Green Corridor
DR Congo's plan for Earth's largest protected tropical forest reserve, from the Kivus to Kinshasa.
Mai-Ndombe REDD+
A former logging concession in the Congo Basin turned community-governed rainforest refuge.
Nuru Goma 1 solar-hybrid mini-grid
A solar-hybrid mini-grid in Goma, North Kivu, described by MIGA as the largest off-grid mini-grid in sub-Saharan Africa.
Regulation
NDC
"En 2015... la RDC avait soumis à la CCNUCC sa Contribution Déterminée à l'échelle Nationale (CDN) dont la cible de réduction des émissions était de 17%... Sa cible actuelle est de réduire de 21[%]..."Préface, p.7
Issuing body: entities.ndjson types this row as "funder", not "government-body" — flagged as a possible ontology mismatch, not corrected here · Corroborated
Carbon market
"un cadre juridique national destiné à réglementer les activités liées au marché du carbone et à encadrer notamment le marché volontaire du carbone sur l'ensemble du territoire congolais," conforming to "l'article 6 de l'Accord de Paris," establishing "l'enregistrement, la délivrance, le transfert, le suivi et la vérification des crédits carbone et des résultats d'atténuation générés en RDC" via a new national carbon registry (reported elsewhere as named "Lumière")article body, actualite.cd, 14 Sept 2026
Very recent. Establishes DRC's first comprehensive carbon-market legal regime, a sovereign national carbon registry, Article 6 conformance, and explicit local-community/Indigenous Pygmy benefit-sharing provisions. Supersedes/complements the 2023 amendment (Ordonnance-loi 23/007) to Loi 11/009 which had already created an "ARMACA" regulatory reference.
Issuing body: proposed/implied Autorité de régulation du marché du carbone — ARMC/ARMACA; existing government-body:government-of-the-drc is the promulgating authority, not the regulator itself · Corroborated
Forest / REDD+
"Article 2 : La présente loi définit le régime applicable à la conservation, à l'exploitation et à la mise en valeur des ressources forestières sur l'ensemble du territoire national. Le régime forestier vise à promouvoir une gestion rationnelle et durable des ressources forestières..."Titre Premier, Article 2
Establishes forest classification (classées/protégées/production permanente), a national and provincial forest cadastre, consultative councils, and forest concession/taxation regimes. Predates REDD+ but is the base forest-law layer beneath DRC's REDD+ architecture.
Issuing body: Government of the DRC · Corroborated