Towards a global forest partnership: consultation, assessment and recommendations

This report presents the findings of an independent consultation carried out by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) on the World Bank’s preliminary idea of a new global forest partnership.

The report is based on research which included surveys of stakeholder opinions in seven countries: (Mozambique, Ghana, Brazil, Guyana, India, China, Russia); a survey of indigenous peoples in Latin America, Asia and Africa; interviews with international organisations and finance bodies; and analyses of existing partnerships and global forest initiatives.

It proposes the participatory development of an inclusive, forest stakeholder-driven partnership with global ambition. It is argued that such a partnership could be expected to empower forest stakeholders by making real connections within the forest sector and across other sectors, increasing responsibility for, and local benefits from, forest global public goods, and by improving the quantity and quality of forest investment.

Key elements in a concerted three-year development process are proposed, which include:

• a Global Forest Partnership (GFP) Development Group comprising leading individuals from low- and middle-income countries, working alongside those from a few progressive international governmental, civil society and private organisations
• pilot participatory country processes focused around ‘peoples’ forest diagnostics’, exploring the real causes of forest problems and identifying policies, institutions and management solutions that work best
• global thematic work to draw on country processes and engage with areas of international policy flux
• innovative mechanisms – such as tiered forest stakeholders from national to regional to global levels and networks for research, learning and monitoring –developed and rolled out with the full launch of the GFP.

The report concludes that the partnership may be expected to strongly influence international policy, as well as technical and financial institutions working in forestry, thereby improving their effectiveness and responsiveness to stakeholders. The World Bank would not be a central driver but, like other members of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), will be encouraged to engage in the GFP development process. The Bank would have a particular role in funding that process and supporting the outcome.

(adapted from author)