The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) conducted a training for the Faculties of Forestry of the University of Khartoum and the University of Kordofan during the period 28th January to 1^st of February 2018 in the quality control of a National Forest Inventory (NFI). The faculties shall be tasked with the Quality Control and Quality Assessment of the National Forest Inventory which is currently being implemented by the Forest National Corporation (FNC) and FAO in the framework of the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+).  The project is funded by the World Bank through its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. In total, 33 participants were trained.

FAO Sudan Representative, Mr Babagan Ahmadu, stressed in his remarks in the closing session on the importance of the National Forest Inventory of Sudan for the government’s efforts to comply with international reporting obligations towards the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and as “planning tool for informed government decisions for natural resource management in the country”.

Mr Adam Mohammed Babikr, Director of General Forests Extensions from the National Forest Corporation, Ministry of Agriculture, highlighted the need for updated data on the state of forests in the Sudan considering the Quality Assessment as “integral part of any forest inventory”. Mr Abdalla Eltayeb, Dean of the Faculty of Forestry of the University of Khartoum and host of the training event underlined the importance of collaboration between the scientific community, Government institutions and FAO. Mr Ahmed Khalil, one of the participants from the Faculty of Forestry of Khartoum, expressed on behalf of the trainees his gratitude to the opportunity to participate in such training containing exposure to the field in the Samra Forest close to Khartoum.

The project which is being implemented since 2016 provides technical assistance to the Government of Sudan to establish a national reference scenario and inventory of forest resources. In doing so, FAO works to institutionalize the use of an effective monitoring, verification and monitoring (MRV) system and strengthen the capacity of key institutions to build the foundation for the future. The project supports data collection and measurement activities underpinning the Sudan Forest Monitoring System. In line with relevant UNFCCC decisions and IPCC guidelines, the project supports Sudan to use a combination of remote sensing and ground based carbon inventory approaches for estimating forest-related Green House Gas emissions by sources and removal by sinks, forest carbon stocks and forest area changes.

With the support of the project, FNC has mobilized nine field-crews consisting of five foresters each to implement the inventory on 705 Sampling Units, country-wide. The Quality Control will be implemented by four field crews of the University of Khartoum and University of Kordofan on 10% of the Sampling Units thus in total 70 sites. The National Forest Inventory including the quality control measures shall be finalized in May 2018.