Supporting the Development of Liberia's Chain of Custody System

The government of Liberia has demonstrated a strong commitment to improve forest governance in the country, by implementing a number of important forest sector reforms including new forest legislation, the establishment of a chain of custody (CoC) system to monitor and control commercial logging, and the Liberian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative which tracks financial receipts between the government and forest operators.

The government hired SGS in October 2007 to build, implement and eventually transfer a national chain of custody (CoC) system to control and monitor the production, processing, transport and trade of forest products in Liberia. The project to implement the CoC system is called LiberFor.

SGS is responsible for, inter alia, the following services: Control logs and wood products from stump to point of export or domestic market, and develop and maintain a computerized CoC information system; Invoice and monitor all forest payments related to log, wood production and trade; Issue timber export permits upon confirmation that the shipment originates from registered harvesting area and all relevant forest payments have been made to the Central Bank of Liberia; Provide training to FDA counterpart staff and other relevant government staff in the Ministry of Finance, Central Banks and Ports Authority.  Eventually FDA will be in charge of running the CoC system.

Lessons learnt in Liberia from the development of this chain of custody system will be shared by PROFOR.