The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) have announced a new partnership to help developing countries meet the Paris Climate Agreement's enhanced transparency requirements. The project, co-funded by GEF (US$1.9 million) and FAO (US$5.2 million), will provide an essential platform for more transparent forest-related data, helping countries to compile, analyze and disseminate better data in line with the Paris Agreement's requirements.
The project will be implemented over two years, and is intended to benefit 26 targeted countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America. The project will focus on upgrading FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment reporting platform; developing an e-learning course on transparency in the forest sector for government forestry staff as well as more broadly for universities, private sector and intergovernmental organizations; organizing sub-regional and national workshops to build countries' and sub-regions' capacities in forest management, and introduce innovative forestry tools; and for developing a series of outreach and communication materials to raise awareness on the importance of data collection, analysis and dissemination for transparency in the forest sector.