Despite decades of international and national policy interventions, deforestation continues across Africa's tropical forest landscapes at an alarming rate. This paper comparatively reviews two distinct forest regions—Ethiopia and the Congo Basin—to identify common drivers, governance failures, and missed policy opportunities. Drawing primarily on Abbadiko's (2016) analysis of Ethiopia's Climate Resilient Green Economy strategy and Maniatis et al.'s (2025) examination of economic drivers in the Congo Basin, this review finds that smallholder agriculture, artisanal charcoal production, and weak governance—not industrial logging—constitute the primary deforestation drivers in both contexts. Ethiopia has lost approximately 40% forest cover a century ago to between 3-11% today, while the Congo Basin lost 352,642 km² of dense forest between 1990 and 2020. The paper argues that insecure land tenure, rural population pressure, lack of affordable energy alternatives, and enforcement failures transcend regional differences. Without addressing these root causes—particularly land rights and energy poverty—international mechanisms such as REDD+ and carbon markets will continue to underperform. The paper concludes by proposing priority interventions: systematic land tenure regularization, scaled investment in clean cooking technologies, and realistic funding frameworks that match ambition with fiscal reality.