West Africa advances in Measurement, Reporting and Verification - moving toward enhanced transparency under the Paris Agreement
Success stories and lessons learned shared
Each year, more and more countries recognize forests’ potential in reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). This October, two events took place in West Africa to improve the Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) and Enhanced Transparency, including MRV for REDD+ activities, and facilitate knowledge exchange at both regional and national levels.
The first event, “The Second Annual Meeting of the West African South-South Network on MRV and Transparency”, hosted by the Government of Senegal in Dakar on 11-13 October 2017, gathered more than 60 participants from 14 West African countries to expand regional collaboration on MRV and enhanced transparency1 in the region.
The meeting was supported by UNDP/UN Environment, GSP, Regional Collaboration Centre of Lomé, Governments of Morocco and Belgium, UNFCCC, FAO, GIZ, ECREEE, Centre Régional Agrhymet and Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT). At the meeting, countries were keen to share their lessons learnt and learn about other West African countries experiences’ in their efforts to monitor and report.
FAO presented its technical support and resources available for the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector in West Africa. Rocío Cóndor-Golec, FAO AFOLU Climate Change Expert, said: “Sustainable institutional arrangements, data collection and analysis, accurate assessment of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, and consistency of reporting to the UNFCCC are key elements for implementing MRV.”
Shortly after the West African South-South Network event, Côte d’Ivoire held the Technical Workshop on Agricultural and Forestry Data to inform Climate Change in Abidjan on 18 October. This event was financially supported by the UN-REDD Programme and organised by the Ministry of Environmental Sanitation and Sustainable Development (MINSEDD) with support from FAO.
The workshop highlighted the importance of agricultural and forestry and land-use data for the preparation of the national GHG inventory and discussed the support FAO can provide to Côte d'Ivoire. Working with FAO technical experts, the country’s Forest Reference Emissions Level (FREL) was revised and the work to improve the national GHG inventory was planned. The FREL will serve as a benchmark for the REDD+ performance assessment.
Côte d'Ivoire became a UN-REDD Programme partner country in June 2011 and been supported by a National Programme since 2014. To advance in its REDD+ activities further, Côte d’Ivoire officials visited FAO Headquarters in December 2016 and April 2017.
Like Côte d’Ivoire, other countries in West Africa have started to monitor their forests over the past years. To effectively combat deforestation, their knowledge and experiences ought to be carefully systematized and disseminated. Capacity-building events as the ones in Senegal (at the regional level) and Côte d'Ivoire (at the national level) are crucial to contributing to south-south cooperation initiatives. Such events have the potential to benefit countries and reinforce institutional arrangement that will enhance data collection processes useful for international reporting (UNFCCC, REDD+ etc.), respectively.
Useful links
- Second Annual Meeting of the West African South-South Network on MRV and Transparency | Agenda
- FAO Côte d'Ivoire news article (in French) La FAO sensibilise sur l'importance de disposer d’un système de collecte des statistiques agricoles et forestières en Côte d’Ivoire
- Côte d'Ivoire UN-REDD web page
For more information, please contact:
- Rocío Cóndor-Golec, AFOLU Climate Change Expert, (E-mail: [email protected]),
- Minoarivelo Randrianarison, Forestry Officer, (E-mail: [email protected]) or
- Anne Branthomme, Regional Technical Adviser for Africa, (E-mail: [email protected]),
[1] Enhanced Transparency Framework
The Paris Agreement has introduced under Article 13 the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) for action and support in order to build mutual trust and confidence and promote effective implementation. Countries will be required to report their national GHG inventories and information to track implementation of their NDCs as well as information on climate change impacts and adaptation. Transparency arrangements will probably build upon the already existing MRV framework. This framework requires developing countries to submit National Communications (NC) every four years and Biennial Update Reports (BUR) every two years. In 2018, at COP 24 modalities, procedures and guidelines (MPGs) will provide guidance on the ETF.
More information: Transparency of support under the Paris Agreement