Forestry officials from across Asia and the Pacific region have been exchanging ideas and experiences in both reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the forest sector, and in submitting the detailed reports that are a critical part of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+). A recent workshop in Pokhara, Nepal, organized by FAO and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), facilitated connections and conversations between countries regarding the Technical Assessment process for Forest Reference Emission Levels/Forest Reference Levels (FREL/FRL).

A pool of academics and government technical officers in Bangladesh is now equipped with skills to provide training on Greenhouse Gas Inventories (GHGi) thanks to a recent training-of-trainers event. Thirteen participants (two women and eleven men) met for an intensive five-day training-of trainers ToT) event on GHGi for the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector at the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics in Dhaka. The workshop was held from 23 to 27 April 2017, and was financed by the Bangladesh UN-REDD National Programme with technical support from FAO and the Bangladesh Forest Department.  

The National REDD+ Strategy of Sri Lanka, the National REDD+ Investment Framework and Action Plan (NRIFAP), has now been endorsed for implementation by the Government of Sri Lanka. The country also reached a significant milestone under its National UN-REDD Programme when launching its first platform for National Forest Monitoring System.

The Government of Kenya is in the process of establishing a National REDD+ Programme through the Kenya Forest Service (KFS). Two critical elements of the National REDD+ Programme are forest reference levels and a National Forest Monitoring System. With support from the UN-REDD Programme, this new document describes the steps towards establishing the design of the NFMS and reference levels, through an enumeration and description of required tasks.

The Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the General Secretariat for Environment and Sustainable Development, in collaboration with FAO, organized a workshop to identify information needs to prepare the DRC's first National Forest Inventory (NFI) on 28 February 2017.