A one-day inception meeting of the FAO/GEF project “Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector (CBIT-Forest)” has taken place at the FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy on 19 February 2020.
The workshop gathered 20 participants representing organizations and FAO departments, including forestry, climate change and capacity development, involved in the implementation of the project. After a round of introductions, a brief presentation on the history and work of the Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) Trust Fund was delivered by Jeff Griffin, Senior Coordinator of the GEF Unit at FAO. Afterwards, Julian Fox, the Team Leader of the National Forest Monitoring Team presented the CBIT- Forest project and highlighted its strong connection to FAO forest monitoring work at a global and national level.
“Efficient monitoring of and reporting on forests and land-use change is essential for tracking the progress of climate actions,” says Fox. ”However, many developing countries still lack the capacity to generate reliable forest data to report on their climate achievements. This project will provide an essential platform for more transparent forest-related data, helping countries to compile, analyze and disseminate better data in line with the Paris Agreement's requirements."
Following the Q&A discussion, Anssi Pekkarinen, the Global Forest Resources Assessment Team Leader and Rocio Condor, Enhanced Transparency Framework Expert, presented the project’s work plan and key deliverables.
“This ambitious project will be implemented over two years by FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment and National Forest Monitoring teams, which already support 70 countries in their forest-monitoring to ensure more sustainable forest management and better reporting,” comments Condor. “After this workshop, we will continue working closely with our partners, including Global Forest Observations Initiative (GFOI), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the CBIT Global Coordination Platform, to ensure coordination and collaboration with existing activities.”
The workshop provided an opportunity to collect comments and suggestions for the implementation of project activities. The participants highlighted the importance of collaboration and agreed to launch the e-learning course on “Forests and transparency under the Paris Agreement” at the 25th Session of the Committee in Forestry to be held on 22-26 June 2020 in Rome.
The meeting was concluded with the presentation given by Cristina Petracchi, FAO’s Capacity Development Officer in charge of preparing the e-learning course. The course will be an integral component of the project and will support numerous countries to strengthen institutional and technical capacities on forest-related data collection, analysis and dissemination processes to meet the enhanced transparency requirements of the Paris Agreement.
More about CBIT-Forest
"Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector (CBIT-Forest)” is a two-year-long FAO project under the Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) trust fund of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). This global project aims to strengthen the institutional and technical capacities of developing countries to collect, analyse and disseminate forest-related data. It will support countries in meeting the enhanced transparency framework (ETF) requirements of the Paris Agreement and contribute information necessary to track progress made in implementing and achieving nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by
- ensuring that relevant national institutions responsible for forest-related data are able to report and respond to the transparency requirements thanks to improved institutional capacity;
- enhancing technical capacity of governmental counterparts in pilot countries in reporting and improving the accuracy and consistency of forest-related data and
- increasing knowledge sharing among transparency practitioners and experts.
The project will target an existing global network of National Correspondents for the FRA 2020 from at least 187 countries and territories. In addition, free flow and sharing of knowledge and information will be promoted through the already existing knowledge networks, including CBIT and Global Forest Observations Initiative (GFOI).
Related links:
CBIT-Forest web page
FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA)
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+)
CBIT Global Coordination Platform
The GEF Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT)
For more information, please contact:
Rocío D. Cóndor-Golec
MRV/ETF expert
REDD+/NFM cluster
Forestry Department, FAO