Global funding mechanisms

During the 1980s, increasing concerns about global environmental change culminated in the 1992 Earth Summit or United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro and attended by 172 governments.

The Earth Summit gave life to a number of historic intergovernmental processes and conventions including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (1992), UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (1992), the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) (1994) and ratification of the ongoing work of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) .

As part of the continuing development and evolution of these global initiatives, numerous complementary mechanisms have been created in order to elaborate clearer procedures so that decisions can be put into practice.

Some of these mechanisms are of direct relevance to sustainable forest management and particularly for funding in this area. Those which may be relevant to funding in sustainable forest management are the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the National Forest Programme Facility, the UNCCD Global Mechanism (GM) and the UNFCCC Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).