 Population growth, rapid urbanization and energy insecurity are causing a soaring demand for hood fuel across sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that hood fuel is the main source of energy for cooking for over 60% of households contributing to the food security and nutritional needs of millions of people. But due to the inadequate governance and the informal nature of the sector, it is currently a major cause of forest degradation and deforestation. As different countries across the region share common challenges to make hood fuel more sustainable, the Center for International Forestry Research and the Forest and Farm Facility hosted a regional exchange with representatives from Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe to discuss how to better incorporate hood fuel in energy and poverty reduction policies and to encourage mutual learning from other countries domestic hood fuel strategies. We don't have proper policies for hood fuel. We know that the forestry code does not include all aspects related to hood fuel. But we know that hood fuel is the first one, because it is part of the deforestation engine. And that is why today, in these assets, we are going to try to present the situation of the RDC and see as much as possible how to copy what the others are doing in the field to allow the community to fight against deforestation. Mozambique was the only country that had this kind of problem. But now, half a day now, I feel that the whole region is facing the same problem. So the idea is to see how we are going to tackle this. Because there, as I said, it is more a political problem than a technical one. So how are we going to get to the political supporters and convince them that hood fuel is an important area. Due to the fact that in Botswana we are mostly in the semi-arid areas of Africa, so our feedstock in terms of trees and vegetation is not that much. Though at the moment we do have a challenge because now the demand for Projizinschapol is coming up. And our legislation hasn't been dealing with that, our previous legislations. So now we need to take this time to learn from others. The event, which took place on February 26th to 27th, in Lusaka's Mulunguchi International Conference Center, also served as a platform to discuss cross-border movements of charcoal across the region. Strictly enforced laws that limit or ban charcoal production in some countries are driving new regional charcoal trade dynamics that are yet to be fully understood and called for increased regional cooperation. A country can regulate wood fuel in their own country to stamp out deforestation but then that transfers the problem of deforestation to the next country, which might not be so regulated. So that cooperation then is important. We are aware that despite the fact that we are at the moment not dealing with charcoal production, it's happening somewhere behind the scenes and it's crossing borders. Now we need to work together so that we can monitor this illegal trade that is now going on across the countries, the South African countries. Cross-border movement of charcoal is a big challenge because we don't have a common position between our neighboring countries where we illegally or in our statutes we don't bar the importation of charcoal. This means now that charcoal can come into Zimbabwe from other countries but because when it comes you are not able to tell whether this charcoal is locally produced or it has come in from outside the country because our borders are very porous. A lot of it comes through the illegal entry points. Now they take advantage of that and then produce the charcoal locally and then people that it has come from outside and unfortunately our neighboring countries we have not come sit down as a group to see how we can control that. Based on the recent studies that we've done we've noted that there is a lot of cross-border trade in both firewood and charcoal. This trade is very informal because normally they don't use the border points they use the porous borders and we're getting most of what we've noted is most of this charcoal is coming from Ildazambia and Mozambique. If we strengthen our law enforcement in Malawi then most of the charcoal will be coming from these countries so it will be seen like we we are contributing to the deforestation of those neighboring countries. Export of charcoal currently from Zambia is not allowed but the informality in which it happens we have established that it moves between countries. What we are also getting from our neighbor countries like Zambia, Derasi Kongo, Malawi is through the vehicles which carry cargo from Tanzania to these countries so when these lorries go back to Tanzania they can as well haul some charcoal from Zambia, from Malawi and from Derasi Kongo. Charcoal cross-border in Angola we don't have so much record official record but we know that in one of the northern province called Kabinda somehow charcoal used to go to Derasi but there are still information that we need to do some basic studies to understand how much and how often it goes out and we may find that also in the border with Namibia we are likely also to have this kind of situation going on but the reality after doing some field studies we can better inform how much and how often it goes out but up to now we don't have record for that. Currently we understand that there are similarities in terms of policies, laws, regulations that exist between countries and well in terms of the extent to which they are enforced differ or varies between countries but surely we see that the cross-border trade association for example is one of the two that can bridge because then understanding or bringing in the regional aspect then is a starting point to begin to talk at the regional level and move into sustainability and provide a more sustainable aspect of wood fuel from production the movement and how it's done the institutions that are involved and also collaboration between these is enhanced. As we all know, effects of climate change know no boundaries it is therefore important that we shall we shall share national experiences and address the challenge of climate change collectively for sustainable development. The organizers and delegates expect that this event will save as a wake-up call for policymakers to adapt a regional approach to promote a more sustainable wood fuel sector that can contribute to development and avoid negative environmental impacts.