A key workshop was held in Ha Noi today to introduce the Forest and Farm Facility to Viet Nam. This important global partnership is working to ensure that smallholders, communities and women's organizations have improved livelihoods, and increased decision-making over forest and farm landscapes.

Launched in collaboration with the Viet Nam Farmer's Union, the one day workshop brought together a wide range of stakeholders, including national government, forest and farm producers, NGOs, civil society, research institutions, business sector, and International partners.

Patrick Durst, Senior Forestry Officer of FAO Regional Office for Asia and Pacific, said: "Being one of the first countries to establish reduction of rural poverty as one of its key objectives for forest management, Viet Nam has been demonstrating impressive leadership in forestry." And that "Forest and farm facility in Viet Nam will hopefully be a role model to the world in leading the use of forest resources and forestry as a key mechanism for reducing rural poverty".

The workshop helped to set out the vision, mandate and modalities of the Forest and Farm Facility, sharing government and stakeholder perspectives on the context in Viet Nam. It also prioritized key local issues, and laid the groundwork towards developing a framework to guide efforts in the coming three years.

The Forest and Farm Facility was launched in September 2012. In-country activities were launched in six paired pilot countries in January 2013: Guatemala and Nicaragua (Latin America), Gambia and Liberia (Africa), and Nepal and Myanmar (Asia). In the first half of 2014 four more countries: Bolivia, Kenya, Zambia and Viet Nam were selected to join the Facility, with work beginning in the second half of 2014.

Dr Nguyen Duy Luong, Vice President of Viet Nam Farmers Union, said "In April 2014, Viet Nam Farmer's Union has submitted a proposal to support FAO programme on forest and farms facility (FFF) and we are very pleased that Viet Nam has been accepted and selected as programme's implementing partner. VNFU hopes that the FFF will successfully support smallholder farmers and forest dependent communities to improve their livelihoods and reduce rural poverty."

The Forest and Farm Facility is a multi-donor programme, hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), overseen by a Steering Committee, with a management team including staff from FAO, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

The aims of the Forest and Farm Facility are fourfold: to engage forest producers more effectively in policy dialogue; to increase the ability of local communities to invest in sustainable forest and farm management and integrate more effectively in the market; to improve cross-sectoral coordination for sustainable forest and farm management at national and sub-national levels, and to inform national and global agendas, relating to food security, poverty reduction, forest management, illegal logging, trade, biodiversity and climate change) are informed about the knowledge and priorities of smallholders, women, communities and Indigenous Peoples.

More information can be found at: http://www.fao.org/partnerships/forest-farm-facility/en/