Background

Adopted in 2015, the Paris Agreement on climate change encourages all countries to articulate actions to tackle climate change in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and to make these proposed actions progressively more ambitious. Article 13 requests Parties to provide information to enable progress in achieving NDCs to be tracked and promote environmental integrity, transparency, accuracy, completeness, comparability and consistency.

The project “Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector (CBIT-Forest): accelerating capacity-building, knowledge-sharing and awareness raising” aims to strengthen the institutional and technical capacities of developing countries to meet the enhanced transparency requirements of the Paris Agreement, responding to Article 13 and contributing to tackling climate change.

Born from a partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Global Environmental Fund (GEF), this collaborative project directly benefits 1 000 individuals and at least 20 countries, with a broader impact on 236 countries and territories associated with the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) National Correspondent network.

The project addresses key barriers to enhance forest data transparency, such as data collection challenges in remote forest areas and improving data quality for reporting. It focuses on maintaining the momentum in engaging countries in transparent and open data for climate action, contributing to consistent and accurate forest-related data for global and national reporting efforts.

Funded by the GEF, the project is a continuation of FAO’s collaborative efforts in addressing the pressing challenges of climate change and forest conservation initiated under the CBIT-Forest project (2020–2022), capitalizing on its achievements and the valuable lessons it has imparted.