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Home > Highlights > CIFOR Paper Suggests Changes to UNFF’s Works Programme
CIFOR Paper Suggests Changes to UNFF’s Works Programme
Director of CIFOR Forests & Governance Programme, Doris Capistrano, presents her jointly-authored paper, “Revitalizing the UNFF”, at the Indonesian and German organized Country Led Initiative in Bali, February, prior to the UNFF’s 7th Session in April. UNFF chairman Pekka Patosaari observes the meeting in the background.
One of many agenda items for discussion at the 7th Session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF-7), New York 16 -27 April, is the UNFF's Multi-Year Programme of Work, which sets the agency’s global priorities for forest related actions for 2007-2015.
During the lead up to the 7th Session, the Governments of Indonesia and Germany in collaboration with 12 governments and international organizations, including CIFOR, organized a Country-Led Initiative (CLI) in Bali, Indonesia, 13-16 February.
Representatives from some of the world’s leading forestry and environmental organizations attended the CLI. Some of these included Mr. M.S. Kaban – the Republic of Indonesia’s Minister for Forestry, Mr. Pekka Patosaar – Director of the UNFF Secretariat, Mr. Matthias Schwoerer – Government representative of co-host country Germany, Dr. Boen Purnama – Secretary General of the Republic of Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry, Hans P. Hoogeveen – Chair of the UNNF 7’s Bureau, Frances Seymour – CIFOR Director General, and Doris Capistrano – CIFOR Director of Forests and Governance.
In addition to providing the UNFF with constructive input, the CLI was also beneficial to the host country. According to the Jakarta Post (20/3/07 RI forest management gets some good news), “active involvement in the global forest community will enable Indonesia to share its own experiences with other nations, as well as benefit from a range of assistance measures to help develop and implement sustainable forest management policies, wrote the post.”
UNFF’s Hoogeveen told the Post the CLI would boost Indonesia’s access to international cooperation. “Through this meeting, Indonesia can find assistance from the international community on how to balance forests for economic and preservation efforts,” Hoogeveen said.
The objective of the CLI was to contribute to the UNFF-7 by reviewing the core elements central to a range of forestry issues that need to be addressed in developing the UNFF’s Multi-Year Programme of Work, especially crucial forest issues that need a global response.
One of the key speakers was CIFOR’s Doris Capistrano, who presented “Revitalizing the UNFF: Critical Issues and Ways Forward”, a paper written by Capistrano and CIFOR colleagues, Markku Kanninen, Manuel Guariguata, Chris Barr, Terry Sunderland and David Raitzer.
As explained in the paper, the authors hoped their paper would support the CLI’s goal of contributing to the UNFF-7 by addressing several key areas:
- Crucial forest issues in need of global attention and international cooperation
- Key lessons learnt from other international fora and processes
- Possible criteria for prioritizing issues included in the Multi-Year Programme of Work.
- The paper says the UNFF has not fully addressed the key issues likely to impact heavily on forests in the near future and require global cooperation. These key issues include:
- Climate change: global cooperation is needed to fund adaptation and mitigation strategies and these will require coordinated input from informed forestry organizations
- Trade & investment: developing standards and regimes in trade and finance that affect forests needs global cooperation, as do initiatives like certification and investment principles
- Governance: trans-national governance issues such as the illegal timber trade and the international laundering of forest crime proceeds demands international cooperation.
- Eco-services: approaches for balancing conservation and development, or systems to protect biodiversity, such as environmental service payments, must be addressed globally
- The paper suggests several past lessons could assist in the future, including:
- Linkages to other fora: UNFF could better facilitate national and cross-sectoral activities by working with implementation agencies and addressing non-forest policy arenas
- Regional initiatives: many regional actions already address transboundary issues and could be linked to global processes through UNFF’s support
- Multi-stakeholder participation: recent advances in global policy made through collaboration by state, civil, and private sector actors suggests the UNFF adopt a similar approach
- Scientific and technical information: the UNFF has no research capacity and could benefit by linking with research agencies to identify common problems and effective solutions
- The paper suggests that to prioritize the addressed issues in the Multi-Year Programme of Work, criteria could include:
- Confirming that progress on the issue under review will significantly contribute to achievement of at least one of the UNFF's four objectives
- Confirming the issue requires international cooperation at the global level, either to develop rules for a global regime, or global standards for common norms of practice
- Confirming if in an issue will benefit from the political legitimacy or global convening power UNFF offers, even if it is already receiving other multilateral or global institutional attention
Revitalizing the United Nations Forum on Forests: Critical Issues and Ways Forward
Download the complete paper or the summary presented in Bali:
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