Sharing knowledge to empower women and youth on forest climate transparency
“Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector (CBIT-Forest) – the initiative from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) – aimed to help countries meet their Paris Agreement goals and pledges by promoting the use of robust and transparent forest data.
Funded by GEF, CBIT-Forest is characterized by three main goals – boost institutional capacity, strengthen technical capacity and increase knowledge sharing. From its launch at the end of 2019 to its completion in June 2022, the project has reached almost 10,000 people (61% men; 39% women) through its activities, including webinars, virtual trainings and knowledge sharing materials.
The project had a high level of attention to gender issues, from design to engagement and reporting, including measures to enhance the understanding of the importance of a gender-sensitive approach to forest monitoring among forestry and environmental practitioners, and provided capacity development opportunities and equal access to and participation for women and youth.
Knowledge sharing and awareness raising on transparency in 2022
In 2022, CBIT-Forest shared knowledge and raised awareness through:
- “Learning from experiences to increase forest data transparency for climate action”, a global webinar that took place on 23 March, was an opportunity to discuss implementation at the global, regional and national levels, identifying CBIT-Forest as a starting point for increased reporting and transparency. The event also featured the launch of the project’s key publication, Towards open and transparent forest data for climate action: Experiences and lessons learned.
- “Towards open and transparent reporting and dissemination of forest data”, a plenary session that took place during the XV World Forestry Congress 2022, presented recommendations and lessons learned from the project. (Watch the full video of the session here.)
- “Unlocking Food and Agriculture Microdata to Achieve the SDGs: The FAM Catalogue”, a webinar that was organized last October by the Office of Chief Statistician of FAO, presented the Food and Agriculture Microdata Catalogue (FAM), a resource that guarantees access to the data necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Other sessions where CBIT-Forest participated were:
- “Regional Seminar on Gender, Forests, and Carbon”, a webinar organized by Silva Carbon, US Forest Service, Colorado University and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on 6 October.
- “Embracing inclusiveness: key for forests and climate action”, a global webinar organized by Purdue University on 25 October.
The need for addressing inclusiveness when working with data was highlighted in both webinars.
Transparency achievements shared during COFO26
The Twenty-sixth Session of the Committee on Forestry (COFO26), was held at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy from 3–7 October. Contributions were shared through the following documents:
- Forest solutions for combating climate change (COFO/2022/5) highlighted the contribution of CBIT-Forest to help countries improve the reliability, transparency and sharing of forest data towards implementation of the transparency framework of the Paris Agreement.
- Digital innovation for data collection and dissemination on forest resources, their management and uses (COFO/2022/INF/7) included FAO’s establishment of an Open Data Task Force to develop open science and data policy guidelines in the forest sector.
- Progress report on the implementation of the recommendations of the 25th Session of the Committee on Forestry (COFO/2022/INF/11) provided information on the project’s capacity-building efforts.
Transparency at COP27
At the Twenty-seventh Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP27), hosted by Egypt in November 2022, the “Together4Transparency” initiative was organized to exchange views on the meaning and benefits of transparency, consisting of two weeks of events with high-level attendance. This initiative united all stakeholders involved in supporting the transition from the existing reporting and review arrangements under the Convention to the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) of the Paris Agreement. Let’s work “#Together4Transparency”!
On the 4th Capacity-building Hub’s Implementing Articles 6 & 13 Day at COP27, hosted by the Paris Committee on Capacity-building (PCCB), countries and international agencies brought their experience to enhance capacities to implement the Paris Agreement. FAO led the event, “Transparency in agriculture and land use: learning from countries”, highlighting the importance of strengthening national capacity to comply with Article 13 of the Paris Agreement.
Knowledge products open to all
FAO’s Climate Change Knowledge Hub (CC-Hub), a permanent repository of data and materials that will be available even after the completion of the project, gathers existing knowledge and resources on climate change in the agriculture and land use sectors.
CBIT-Forest has made all knowledge products in CC-Hub under the topic, “Enhanced Transparency Framework”, available for free to the public.
The e-learning course, “Sharing the experience of the multilingual MOOC on Forests and Transparency under the Paris Agreement”, which covers the importance of forest-related data collection, analysis and dissemination in meeting the ETF requirements, is available in three languages (English, Spanish, French) in the FAO elearning Academy.
Transparency is crosscutting
CBIT-Forest has contributed transparency-related information to the following FAO publications:
- Addressing data transparency, monitoring and traceability in Halting deforestation from agricultural value chains: the role of governments.
- Describing the ETF in the context of peatlands in Peatlands and climate planning, Part 1: Peatlands and climate commitments.
- Explaining the ETF for REDD+ in From reference levels to results: REDD+ reporting by countries – 2022 update.
FAO will continue working towards transparent open data in 2023, aiming to further support the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
Related links
Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector (CBIT-Forest)
Towards open and transparent forest data for climate action: Experiences and lessons learned (English, French and Spanish).
CC-Hub “Enhanced Transparency Framework”