Descripción: The World Bank and partners (including FAO, IIED, IUCN & TFD ) have been working with investors, donors, NGOs and forest rights-holders (Indigenous Peoples, community and family forestry groups), to explore the opportunities and constraints for improving the quantity and quality of investment in Locally Controlled Forests (LCF). Through this process relationships between key stakeholders have been established, the obstacles and opportunities for investment in LCF articulated, and tools and processes to support enhanced investment identified. The investment opportunities from LCF are vast with one billion people involved and one quarter of the world's forests, they provide $75 - $100 billion per year in goods and services and a broad range of other economic, environmental, social, cultural and spiritual benefits. Various actors (Local communities and small farmers, Investors, Governments & Donors and NGO’s) have been identified as key components in working towards unlocking the potential LCF and to deliver the right sorts of investment needed to catalyze and generate feasible returns and benefits. Through this work, and in response to the demands of the above actors, the partners have developed a guide to support the process of investing in LCF and this side event will present the new guide and the key steps identified in the guide, whilst being supported by inputs from other organisations highlighting the value of such a tool. The new guide presents insights into the value of ILCF along with 17 case studies from across the world, from new to long established businesses, in both developed and developing countries. It shows how investing in locally-controlled forestry offers investors secure access, a ‘social licence to operate’, reduced risks and better long term management opportunities, as well as evidence of social and environmental sustainability. The guide looks in detail at how to encourage a happy marriage between ‘enabling investments’ that prepare the ground for commercial success and ‘asset investments’ that seek a return, usually as profit or products. It also includes a roadmap to successful investment in locally controlled forestry. This covers the business stages of: proposition, establishment, validation, preparation, negotiation and performance; with specific advice on challenges for both investors and enterprises.