The World Forestry Congress (WFC), held every 6 years, is a landmark event in the world of forestry. This year, the GM was invited by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to co-organize and facilitate a segment on “Mobilizing Financial Resources for Sustainability of the Forestry Sector” at the 13th Session of the WFC in Buenos Aires, Argentina (18-23 October 2009).
The GM’s engagement in this process is in the context of its Forest Finance Strategic Programme (FFSP), designed with a view to harnessing the synergies in forestry for UNCCD implementation as part of its quest to fulfil its core mandate - to promote actions leading to the mobilization and channelling of financial resources to developing country Parties to combat land degradation and poverty.
The objectives of the session facilitated by the GM included: presenting less traditional sources of forest finance in view of the call to mobilize forest finance from all sources; demonstrating the detachment between global dialogue and frontline realities; and highlighting the challenges in pinpointing the “new and additional”. Three studies commissioned and presented by the GM prepared the ground for the ensuing debate:
- Internalization of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in Forest Finance Dialogue
- Forest Finance in Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs)- a Case Study of Uganda; and
- Potential of Micro-Finance in Forest Investments.
Participants expressed great interest in the studies and commended the GM for the empirical nature of the information presented and the way the presentations synergistically tied together the national level, corporate inputs and frontline demands.
Download paper on "Mobilising and channeling forest finance in a heavily indebted poor country (HIPC): Case Study of Uganda" (pdf, English 343 KB)
Download paper on "The role of micro-financing in sustainable forest management"(pdf, English 102 KB)
Download paper on "The Paris Declaration and its implication on finance for natural resource management"(pdf, English 116 KB)
For more information:
Mr J. Kamuguisha-Ruhombe,Coordinator Forestry Finance Programme
j.ruhombe (at) global-mechanism.org
