FO:NEFC/02/11

Table of Contents

BACKGROUND

NATIONAL FOREST PROGRAMME FACILITY

FOLLOW UP

BACKGROUND

1. The National Forest Programme Facility is an innovative partnership to support the implementation of national forest programmes in developing countries. The main modes of operation will be capacity building and information sharing. Particular emphasis will be placed on addressing poverty alleviation and governance issues through empowerment of civil society and enhanced participation of a broad range of stakeholders.

NATIONAL FOREST PROGRAMME FACILITY

Rationale

2. The five years of intense intergovernmental dialogue conducted under the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) stressed the role of national forest programmes as important means for addressing forest sector issues in a holistic, comprehensive and multisectoral manner. The importance of national forest programmes was reiterated in the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) decision establishing the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF).

3. However, the formulation and implementation of national forest programmes in many developing countries are constrained by a number of critical factors, especially:

• lack of knowledge on how to resolve some of the key cross-sectoral and economy-wide constraints to sustainable forest management, how to augment the sector's contribution to broader development objectives and how to gain increased political support;
• inadequate knowledge and information on how to design and put in place effective forest policies and instruments for policy implementation which (together with the above) contribute towards an enabling environment for sectoral development, including increased investment;
• poor mobilization and use of existing information and knowledge at all levels and by all actors involved in national forest programme processes;
• weak capacity of countries to manage and implement national forest programme processes that are participatory, multisectoral and country led;
• broader constraints related to governance, accountability and transparency of sectoral information.

4. The Facility is being developed to assist countries in tackling these constraints and challenges in the implementation of their national forest programmes. The Facility is the result of an intensive collaborative effort with a large group of partners from the European Union and its member countries, FAO, institutions from developing countries and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The projected cost for the first five-year period is US$32 million.

What will it do?

5. The Facility will strengthen the information and knowledge base for national forest programme implementation and will improve processes and mechanisms for sharing and using this knowledge. In broad terms, the Facility will accomplish this mission by:

• strengthening the capacity of the national actors to manage the national forest programme process in a participatory manner;
• supporting the participation of civil society in the national forest programme process, focusing especially on strengthening the capacity of forest-dependent groups that are at risk of being marginalized or excluded from the process;
• promoting transparency and accountability within the forest sector by improving the availability of and access to information and knowledge;
• nurturing country-led efforts to negotiate, formulate and put in place appropriate national policies and instruments for policy implementation;
• facilitating efforts to make effective use of local and national knowledge and capabilities;
• providing international access to lessons learned from local and country-level experiences, while helping information seekers suffering from information overload;
• promoting the sharing of knowledge among institutions and countries, with an emphasis on overcoming the "digital divide" between developed and developing countries in terms of access to knowledge that is vital to successful implementation of national forest programmes.

Who is involved?

6. The intended beneficiaries of the Facility are the key actors involved in national forest programme processes in developing countries. These include participants from both government and civil society, with special focus on community-based organizations and other local NGOs. The partners of the Facility will include interested multilateral and bilateral agencies supporting national forest programme processes as well as other service providers to national forest programmes, such as international NGOs, research institutions and private-sector organizations.

7. The Facility will act with the beneficiaries and partners along two principal lines of action, one at the national and one at the international level. First, it will directly support the national forest programme processes in a number of countries through Cooperation Agreements, following applications from the countries.

8. Second, it will create and maintain a forest information platform at the international level. The platform will enable the users to identify and obtain access to the best possible sources of information and knowledge for any issue that may arise in a national forest programme process, whether technical, political, process-related or financial. The platform will be operated as a collaborative effort with other relevant knowledge and information providers, including NGOs, research institutions and the private sector, using the best possible combination of Web-based and other channels for information dissemination.

How will it operate?

9. The Facility will operate under the guidance of a Technical Steering Committee established by its founding partners. An Advisory Group, including representatives of different beneficiary countries as well as from a broad range of partner institutions, NGOs and the private sector, will provide technical and political advice to the Facility. The Facility will have a small staff at FAO headquarters in Rome to take care of core functions and a number of regionally located facilitators. While FAO technical staff at headquarters and regional offices will provide technical support to the Facility's operations, the bulk of the Facility's work will be conducted by outside specialists (with emphasis on regional and local experts) and through collaborative arrangements with partners.

FOLLOW UP

10. The Commission may wish to review and comment on the objectives and process proposed for the National Forest Programme Facility and recommend measures for:

• Refining and improving the usefulness of the National Forest Programme Facility for the member countries;
• Reinvigorating and strengthening the overall process of national forest programmes implementation; and
• Defining areas for information sharing where FAO should be active in facilitating exchange of knowledge and experience among member countries.