Forestry experts agree on the need for a new global partnership to ensure sustainable forests initiatives deliver on environmental needs and work for the poor. But they say the World Bank, which last year proposed the collaboration, should not take an active role in the initiative.
That’s the message in a report by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), based on a survey of more than 600 forest experts in Brazil, China, Ghana, Guyana, India, Russia and Mozambique, as well as those attending international meetings.
The World Bank last year proposed a new global programme, the Global Forests Partnership (GFP), to reduce deforestation and unsustainable forestry use, drawing together the Bank’s and other forest initiatives under one umbrella.
The thrust of the IIED report conclusions is that the World Bank should step away from such a process and take a “hands off” approach that allows smaller, forest-dependent stakeholders to build a truly effective alliance from the bottom up. It appears this feedback to some extent reflects resistance among some NGOs about the World Bank taking an active role after what they felt was a negative experience with its programmes in the past. The survey respondents also agreed that the programme has to tie in with sustainable forests initiatives at global, national and local levels to be effective.
Momentum for new action on forests is building, particularly in the wake of startling data on worldwide rates of deforestation and its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. This has seen the emergence of the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (
REDD) process, promoting the establishment of forest carbon markets to pay local communities for avoiding deforestation.
The World Bank’s new
Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is one recent initiative in this area. Much work still needs to be done, however, to see that such mechanisms deliver on forest conservation and for the estimated 1.6 billion people relying directly on forests for their livelihood, many of them in poverty in developing countries.
The IIED says a key challenge of relevance for a GFP is how it can add value beyond the the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), an alliance of 14 mostly UN forest-related organisations to support the work of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and enhance cooperation and coordination on forest issues.
The IIED report suggests a staged development process targeting a launch of the partnership within three years. It recommends the World Bank review its processes and mechanisms before revising its Forest Sector Business Plan. This would, among other things, remove “the contradictions created by actions in other sectors affecting forests”.
The World Bank’s Forest Advisor Gerhard Dieterle says the consultation feedback is welcomed and the Bank will support “bottom up” development of the global partnership.
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