The international technical webinar “Monitoring and sustainable financing for forest and landscape restoration” took place on 10 November 2021.

The webinar was part of a series organized by the FAO elearning Academy, Agreenium, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and the Future Food Institute.

The main objective of these technical webinars is to give practitioners the opportunity to interact with international experts, United Nations officers, university professors, researchers and fellow participants throughout the world.

The session was delivered by Christophe Besacier (FAO), Mathilde Iweins (FAO) and René Zamora Cristales (World Resources Institute), and moderated by Fabio Picinich (FAO). Over 700 people registered for the session and 241 participants attended it.

The webinar aimed to:

• identify tools and processes for planning, implementing and monitoring forest and landscape restoration (FLR) interventions;
• explain why FLR monitoring is important and which indicators are appropriate for meeting restoration objectives; and
• describe the benefits and costs of FLR financing, as well as different priority areas, investor types and funding sources.

Each speaker presented the structure of one of the following three courses developed by the FAO Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM):

• Introduction to forest and landscape restoration
• Sustainable financing for forest and landscape restoration
• Monitoring forest and landscape restoration

More specifically, Christophe Besacier explained the work of the FLRM and what FLR is, explaining the concepts, approaches and tools used to implement the overall process of FLR.

While Christophe’s presentation linked to the e-learning course “Introduction to forest and landscape restoration,” Mathilde Iweins highlighted topics that are discussed in the course “Sustainable financing for forest and landscape restoration.”

Mathilde discussed the costs of funding FLR actions, the main funding sources for FLR and the different financing mechanisms available. In addition to taking the e-learning course, more information on what Mathilde presented can be accessed by reading the publication Local financing mechanisms for forest and landscape restoration: A review of local-level investment mechanisms and consulting the brochure “FAO support to finance forest landscape and restoration.”

The last to present was René Zamora who discussed another fundamental part of FLR interventions: monitoring. If you wish to learn more about what René presented, monitoring principles and why monitoring is important for FLR, take the dedicated e-learning course mentioned above and read the joint FAO/WRI publication on which the course is based: The Road to Restoration: A guide to identifying priorities and indicators for monitoring forest and landscape restoration.

Please note that the three courses are all available free of charge on the FAO elearning Academy. They are closely aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and FAO strategic programmes, and are peer reviewed by a wide range of experts to ensure content accuracy, quality and coherence. Furthermore, a digital badge to certify the acquisition of competencies is granted by FAO to learners who pass the final scenario-based performance evaluation test.

At the moment, the three FLRM e-learning courses are available in both English and French, and will be translated into Russian.

If you could not attend the webinar, kindly note that it was recorded and will shortly be available on the dedicated FAO elearning Academy page, where you can also access the presentations of the three speakers. Please find them here.

For more information contact us at: [email protected].

Giorgio Maria Millesimi (FAO) and Caterina Marchetta (FAO)