In 2011, six international organizations came together to create the Collaborative Forest Resources Questionnaire (CFRQ): the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), FOREST EUROPE, the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the Observatory of Central African Forests (OFAC/COMIFAC) and the Montréal Process. FAO’s partners in the CFRQ represent some 100 countries and 88 percent of the world’s forest area. 

CFRQ partners jointly collect and share forestry data on over 60 percent of the total number of variables collected through the FRA process so that countries only need to report their information once. This means that the data are collected once and used many times. This both reduces the reporting burden and increases data consistency across organizations through standardized definitions and the timing of data collection.