Annex 12: Community of Practice: Enhancing stakeholder participation in
national forest programmes
Following the positive
outcome of the meeting on “Enhancing stakeholder participation in national
forest programmes” which took place at FAO Headquarters in Rome from November
20th to 21st, 2002, the need has been identified to
develop a mechanism that will maintain the positive momentum created, develop
and strengthen the collaboration initiated among the participating experts
and institutions. To that effect a “community of practice” on “Enhancing stakeholder
participation in national forest programmes” will be established.
Objective:
The objective of the community of practice on “Enhancing
stakeholder participation in national forest programmes” is to contribute to
the international call (IPF, IFF, UNFF) to ensure adequate stakeholder
participation in national forest programmes (nfps) processes by bringing
together experts in stakeholder participation to share views, experiences,
lessons learned and information on recent developments, to build or strengthen
partnerships, to harmonize relevant approaches and to make them available to
nfp actors world-wide.
Membership:
Members of the community of practice are experts from
international organizations, research and academic institutions, international
civil society organizations, the private sector and individual experienced
persons, who are directly involved in developing, testing and implementing
approaches to ensure the active participation of stakeholders in nfp processes.
Participants of the Rome meeting are considered to be the first
members of the community. New members that meet the above criteria will be
welcomed to join the community of practice.
Mechanisms:
The community of practice is a light and flexible structure
which will be a catalyst for generating knowledge and sharing information on
the enhancement of stakeholder participation in national forest programmes.
The community of practice will meet once a
year in a place to be determined by the members.
In addition to sharing information and knowledge, the
purpose of these meetings will be to report on the advancement of the different
work and in particular on the ones which have been agreed to be conducted in
partnership at earlier meetings. Specific topics of interest to the members or
of general relevance can be identified in advance and will constitute the
subject of a specific session. It is foreseen that each meeting will last two
days.
To ensure an adequate feed-back from national
experiences, the community of practice will invite national representatives
to attend meetings. National representatives could alternate on a yearly basis
to enable the exchange of diversified experiences. The invitation of national
representatives will be based on proposals made by the members.
Dissemination of information and knowledge
resulting from the community of practice will be mainly done through existing
networks to which the members have access and also through the information
platform which is being established by the National Forest Programme Facility
(Facility).
Other operational mechanisms such as the establishment
of a permanent platform for discussion, regional working groups, etc., could
be discussed and agreed at a forthcoming meeting of the community of practice.
Chair: during the first and initial year FAO
will chair the community of practice. After that period a new chair will
be elected at each meeting of the community of practice.
Funding:
To ensure the sustainability of the community of practice,
members will look for cost effective solutions, i.e. use of own resources and
facilities, to facilitate meetings and other activities.
It is understood that, as far as possible,
it is expected that members will be able to cover their costs of participation.
However, it has been proposed at the Rome
meeting that the Facility would provide assistance to the community of practice
for its 2003 activities for an amount of up to $40,000. These funds will be
used: a) to facilitate the organization of the forthcoming meeting and in
particular to hire a facilitator and to support experts who cannot cover,
partly or entirely, their costs of participation; b) for other activities
related to knowledge dissemination and capacity building.
