Participants' group photo

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is hosting a workshop for forest experts from Africa’s English speaking countries in Dar es Salaam where they are expected to share experience and progress in the compilation of their forest resources assessment reports.

Speaking at the opening of the sub-regional workshop, FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) Team Leader, Anssi Pekkarinen, said that the meeting focuses on the Forest Resources Assessment country reports for 2020 and that the aim was to contribute to the improvement of the quality, consistence, completeness and transparency of the data used.

Important opportunity

“The workshop will give opportunity to forest resources assessment national correspondents to present status of their country reports, review them with FAO experts and share experiences and challenges with colleagues from other countries for solution,” he said.

According to him, FAO has been conducting global forest resources assessments since 1948 and that this year it is celebrating the 70^th anniversary of the exercise that has been evolving over the time to adapt to changing needs.

Relevance to Tanzania and other countries

Speaking on behalf of the Tanzania Government, the Acting Director General of the Tanzania Forestry Research Institute, Dr. Revocatus Petro Mushumbusi, said that the workshop was timely and very relevant to Tanzania and all the countries involved.

“It’s our expectation that the deliberations will provide a unique opportunity for addressing suitable approaches to support forest resources assessment and monitoring in our countries for informed decision making,” he said.

Dr. Mushumbusi was speaking on behalf of the Director of Forest and Beekeeping in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.

Strengthening capacities

In his opening remarks, the FAO Representative to the United Republic of Tanzania, Fred Kafeero, said that the UN Agency recognizes the important role that the forest resources assessment national correspondents played in each of the member countries.

“This workshop will give you the opportunity to review draft country reports and benefit from sharing experiences with other colleagues from the same sub-region and colleagues from FAO who are experts on these issues. This is one of the many ways trough which FAO strengthens capacities,” he noted.

The three-day workshop has attracted participation of forest experts from 22 Africa English speaking countries and FAO Forest Department at headquarters in Rome, Italy. The countries include Botswana, Eritrea, Eswatin (Former Swaziland), Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique and Namibia. Others are Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the host Tanzania.