FAO strives to assist member states to improve their specific wood energy situation in terms of social and economic viability, ecological sustainability, resource efficiency and emissions. FAO offers its support to member states by:
Raising awareness of the importance of wood energy
FAO can provide wood energy statistics at national, regional and global levels and use these data in articles and presentations for meetings and conferences to highlight the importance of wood fuels for both the energy and forestry sectors.
Collecting, improving and sharing accurate data
FAO can strengthen national capacities to:
actively assess their current wood fuel situation
use secondary data – e.g. scattered data from project literature and other sources
reconcile data on consumption (energy statistics), production (forestry statistics) and trade (flows).
Formulating, implementing and monitoring of sound wood energy policies
FAO can assist policy-makers and decision-makers of member states by:
organizing events for stakeholder consultation, consensus finding, capacity building
facilitating exchanges of experience between countries. Wood energy solutions are always very specific to the local conditions, often requiring even site-specific solutions. However good examples from other countries can bring new ideas and inspiration to others.
Facilitating cross-sectoral communication and collaboration
FAO can serve as a neutral platform for discussion to:
strengthen national capacities to mediate between and reconcile with all stakeholders involved, such as various socio-economic layers in rural and urban areas
enable cross-sectoral communication and understanding in particular with the energy sector but also all other sectors involved.
Applying sustainable and resource efficient production and consumption
FAO can assist countries in:
improving skills of stakeholders involved in the production and transportation of wood fuels, notably charcoal
providing skills to small scale forest owners and communal forest owners on how to sustainably produce and market wood fuels
developing skilled workers for small and medium scale production of efficient cooking stoves
facilitating technology transfer in wood-based energies and fostering the dissemination of bioenergy technologies.
NOTE:
FAO provides technical support acting as a neutral, international organization. FAO is not a funding organization and can thus not deploy vast financial support to projects directly. FAO can assist member states in actively seeking partners and donors to implement projects in the field of wood energy.
