The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has reached a major milestone in contributing to the global goal of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) by holding an inception workshop and officially launching the Bangladesh National Programme of the United Nations Collaborative Programme on REDD+ in developing countries, known as the UN-REDD Programme on Wednesday, 3 August at the Radisson BLU Dhaka Water Garden, Dhaka.

The UN-REDD Programme has been supporting nationally led REDD+ initiatives in 64 developing countries. Among developing countries, Bangladesh has recently been playing a significant promising role by taking concrete measures to combat global climate change in line with its signed promises under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). The country joined the UN-REDD global family as a partner country in 2010.

As part of the country’s progressive measures, the UN-REDD Bangladesh National Programme has brought together the United Nations specialized agencies – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with the GoB’s nodal ministry, i.e. the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), to build the capacities required to formulate and implement Bangladesh’s national REDD+ strategy.

Organized by Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD), focal agency of Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) in charge of hosting this collaborative programme, the inception workshop was graced by Dr Kamal Uddin Ahmad, Secretary, MoEF as the chief guest. Ms Pauline Tamesis, Country Director, UNDP Bangladesh, and Mr David Doolan, FAO Representative a.i., in Bangladesh joined as the Guest of Honor. Chaired by Mr Md. Yunus Ali, Chief Conservator of Forests, the event included representation of different ministries, departments, govt. agencies, research institutions, universities, NGOs, civil society organizations, ethnic groups and international organizations.

The Chair, in his welcoming address, remarked, “The UN-REDD Programme will go beyond carbon sequestration, and is therefore a very welcome and critical addition to our efforts in watershed management, biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction through livelihood improvements of rural people. A country like Bangladesh should focus on the co-benefits of REDD+ also, where millions of people depend on forests for their livelihoods.”

Mr Md. Rakibul Hasan Mukul, National Project Director of the UN REDD Bangladesh National Programme, outlined the project’s mission, vision and goal on expediting GoB’s journey towards its National REDD+ Strategy. “Bangladesh has identified climate change as one of its key development challenges, and embraced actions aimed at increasing climate resilience of people, its resource base, infrastructures, through strategic national investment and innovative climate financing” he noted.

Ms. Pauline Tamesis, Country Director to the UNDP Bangladesh highlighted the country’s policy and institutional reforms to stop deforestation and forest degradation as one of the key challenges for REDD+ implementation in Bangladesh. Her speech shed light on UNDP’s continued assistance to GoB and the importance of REDD+ to achieve SDGs like Climate Action (Goal 13), Responsible Consumption and Production (Goal 12), Gender Equality (Goal 5), Life on Land (Goal 15), and Decent Work and Economic Growth (Goal 8), etc. She also underlined the project’s capacity building assistance that is aimed to capacitate the country particularly BFD to secure results-based payments under the UNFCCC’s Warsaw Framework for REDD+.

In his speech, Mr. David W Doolan, FAO Representative a.i., in Bangladesh pointed out the FAO’s role in the capacity building efforts of the programme. He emphasized that the establishment of a National Forest Monitoring System and its importance for the REDD+ mechanism, as well as sustainable management of forests. He also noted that FAO has been providing support to many countries, including Bangladesh, on several forestry topics, including forest inventory, forest monitoring, forest management and conservation. Under the National Programme, FAO will implement two of the outcomes. Several important activities will be carried out to achieve each outcome such as assessing the historical trends of forest and land use changes, support to institutional arrangements for measurement, reporting and verification (MRV), the development of methods for forest monitoring, strengthening capacities for the preparation of Greenhouse Gas inventories for the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector, and establishing an information system.

During the open discussion session, the distinguished guests stressed on strengthening of the forest governance and scope for the engagement of forest dependent people, particularly ethnic communities, in the REDD+ mechanism. The event concluded with the conclusion that the REDD+ mechanism will open up the opportunity to manage the forest resources of the country sustainably, and, hence contribute to the effort of the country to meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

About REDD+:

REDD stands for "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) in developing countries". "REDD+" goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

with a total fund of 1,070,000, FAO, under the UN-REDD programme, will mainly support two of the ouctomes of the country programme, namely: Outcome 3 “Capacities to develop and test National Forest Reference Emission Level (REL) and/or Forest Reference Level  (RL) are in place” and “Outcome 4: National Forest Information System can be used to Develop a National Greenhouse Gas Inventory for the Forest Sector

More information, please visit our websites: http://www.un-redd.org/  or http://www.bforest.gov.bd/