Most countries with low forest cover and small island developing states are located in arid, semi-arid and dry zones. In Africa for instance, with the exception of the Central African sub-region with its Congo Basin Forest, all other sub-regions have large areas of low forest cover, while dry forests account for a further 18% of land areas.
In these zones, forest and land share the same constraints: they are seldom among the top priorities of strategies and development programs and channel insufficient resources for the implementation of sustainable management programs. They also face the same challenges: how to mainstream sustainable land and forest management into development programmes and strategies, how to increase synergies with other development issues and processes – with the ultimate aim of increasing resource mobilization and allocation.
It is in this context that how financing forest issues in LFCC could benefit from GM’s experiences, tools and knowledge, was discussed during a panel session on existing and available resources to finance forestry activities and modalities to access these resources at the Workshop on Forest Financing (Niamey, Niger, 30 -3 February 2012).
This was the second of four workshops of the second component of the project to identify gaps, obstacles and opportunities in financing SLM in small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Low Forest Cover Countries (LFCCs),as part of the facilitative process (FP) launched on 30 October 2009 by the UN Forum on Forests how to implement sustainable forest management (SFM).
Participating as part of the Global Mechanism (GM)’s contribution to the preparation of UNFF 10 and the Review of the International Arrangements on Forests in 2015, Ms. Wafa Essahli illustrated convincingly how the GM’s achievements and experience on resource mobilization for LDD/SLM could benefit SFM. She explained the relevance of the Integrated Financing Strategy (IFS) – a tool for identifying, developing and structuring a mix of financial resources to fund (sub) regional and country-level SLM-related programmes - to the forestry process, drawing attention to the need to invest in innovative resources, such as those related to climate change, market based mechanisms, the private sector, and aid for trade.
She went on to highlight the pertinence of the IFS as a framework for strengthening partnerships between the various stakeholders and development actors at the national level and in this context, she brought home the importance of better informing stakeholders and decision-makers on the economic valuation of land and forests and the cost of inaction, with a view to raising the profile of these issues on the political and development agendas.
The GM is looking to discuss these issues further by co-organizing and participating in the next workshops for SIIDs to be held in Trinidad-and-Tobago and Fiji, with a view to mobilizing and sensitizing UNCCD stakeholders on the potential of the IFS as tool for strengthening synergies between land and forest issues.
For more information:
Ms. Wafa Essahli, Regional Advisor
Regional Coordination Unit of the UNCCD for Africa
Tel. +216 22 25 19 18
w.essahli (at) global-mechanism.org
