Workshop series report on knowledge exchange and awareness raising on forest-related data reporting in the context of international commitments

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Rome, 2021

Workshop series report on knowledge exchange and awareness raising on forest-related data reporting in the context of international commitments FAO/GEF project: “Building global

capacity to increase transparency in the

forest sector”

2

1. Background

In the context of the FAO project “Building global capacity to increase transparency in the forest sector (CBIT-Forest),”¹ financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment² (FRA) organized a series of online workshops, which aimed to increase awareness on the FRA reporting process and strengthen its linkages to other reporting commitments.

2. Workshop objectives

The purposes of these workshops were to increase awareness on the FRA reporting process and its linkages to other reporting processes, and to

strengthen information exchange between the national focal points- mainly the ones for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

(UNFCCC) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). An important step in this strengthening process was to raise awareness about the reporting process, its modalities, the methodology, etc. and the linkages with other reporting

processes. For this step, the exchange of knowledge is key, between the partners (different focal points) within a country but also between countries (sharing best practices) during regional workshops.

3. Workshop structure

A sub-regional approach was adopted for these workshops, therefore, processes for South-East Asia, West/Central Africa and the Mesoamerican regions were designed. These regions correspond with 3 language groups- English for South- East Asia, French for the West/Central African region and Spanish for the Mesoamerican region.

In order to take advantage of the online nature of these workshops, two separate hour and a half session were organized for each region, resulting in a total of six workshop sessions. During the first set of workshops, FAO and UNFCCC

explained the context of the FRA reporting process and its linkages to the UNFCCC and the SDG processes. Ad hoc videos that presented the FRA process were launched in English, Spanish and French.

English: https://youtu.be/SmMyfNlZ-jQ French: https://youtu.be/inJOU45yBbY

Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNZNZdtuCOM

One country from each of the three regions was asked to prepare a presentation detailing best practices they have implemented. These countries were Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mexico.

1 http://www.fao.org/in-action/boosting-transparency-forest-data/en/

2 http://www.fao.org/forest-resources-assessment/en/

3 The presentations served as an example to help guide the other countries in preparing their own presentations for the second round of workshops. Seven countries responded to the call: Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Senegal, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala. They presented their best practices during the second workshops.

Date for the online workshops were (time is CET)

- Thursday 4 March – South-East Asia 1 (morning 9:00 – 11:00)

- Thursday 11 March – West/Central African 1 (morning 10:00 – 12:00) - Thursday 11 March – Mesoamerica 1 (afternoon 16:00 – 18:00)

- Tuesday 16 March – South-East Asia 2 (morning 09:00 – 11:00) - Tuesday 23 March – West/Central African 2 (morning 10:00 -12:00) - Tuesday 23 March – Mesoamerica 2 (afternoon 16:00 – 18:00)

4. Satisfaction survey

A satisfaction survey was polled at the end of each of the second workshop sessions. Overall, it revealed that participants greatly appreciated each workshop session- both the content and format.

Participants enjoyed the overall organization of the content and the variety of activities, which received a score of 3.4 out of 5 for the Asia workshop, 3.6 out of 5 for the Africa workshop and 4.5 out of 5 for the LAC workshop. However, the opportunity to converse with international experts and share experiences and opinions reported a slightly higher level of satisfaction- 3.5 out of 5 for the Asia and Africa workshops and 4.6 out of 5 for the LAC workshop. The technical support and interaction with the facilitators scored highest, receiving a score of 3.4 out of 5 for the Asia workshop, 4.3 out of 5 for the African workshop and 4.5 out of 5 for the LAC workshop.

5. Workshop outcomes

In total, 24 countries from 44 institutions participated in the workshops with 232 participants (32% women; 68% men) joining the 6 workshop sessions.

Participants reported that the country presentations helped them understand how to organize and coordinate their own reporting processes. The importance of coordination between the different focal points was especially seen as a valuable lesson to emerge from the workshops. Also, the sharing of experiences from different countries helped participants see what was possible in terms of institutional and coordination arrangements.

The results of these workshops will contribute to the development of further activities aimed at strengthening countries’ capacities to report to the Global Forest Resources Assessment.

4 Annex I. Countries and number of participants and institutions for the

workshops

Workshop 1

N. of countries registered N. Countries participating

South East Asia 10

Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Mesoamerica 8

Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador,

Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama.

West/Central Africa 11

Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Mali, Niger, and Senegal.

total 29 Workshop 2

Number of countries participating N. Countries participating

South East Asia 8 Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, PNG, Thailand, Vietnam Mesoamerica 8 Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala,

Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama,.

Wes/t Central Africa 8

Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Mali, Niger and Senegal.

total 24

Sub-

region N.

participa nts

N.

instituti ons South East

Asia

79 13

Mesoamer

ica 62 14

West/

Central Africa

91 17

Total 232 44

5 Annex 2: Day 1 and day 2 program

First online workshop on "Knowledge exchange and awareness raising on forest-related reporting in the context of the international commitments”

Day 1 Meeting 1 – Sharing the best practices-

15 min before Opening Zoom space (Ruben van der Laan)

00:00 Welcome

- Objectives of the workshop (Anssi Pekkarinen)

• Programme and introduction of the technical tools (Ruben van der Laan)

- Small networking exercise with 3 questions using the mentimeter software

00:10 Setting the context: the FRA reporting process and its linkages to UNFCC & SDG

• The FRA process (video)

• FRA and SDGs (Lars Marklund)

• FRA and its linkages to the reporting

processes under the UNFCCC (Jenny Wong) - Q&A

00:30 Presentation of best practices

• Country best practices 00:50 Questions on the presentation

01:00 Discussion on 6 questions from the stocktaking exercise

- Discussion with the use of mentimeter software 01:15 Discussion on the process onwards

- What to prepare for meeting 2

01:30 Closing remarks

6 Second online workshops on "Knowledge exchange and awareness raising

on forest-related reporting in the context of the international commitments”

Day 2 Meeting 2 – presentations of best practices 15 min before Opening of the digital room

00:00 Opening

- Opening of the sessions and presentation of the program

- Recap of session 1 (with 1 or 2 slides) - Mentimeter questions:

o What country are you from?

o Are you a focal point? If yes, which one?

o What was your main take-away from session 1?

o Have you been in touch with your focal points within your country?

- participants introduction 01:00 Presentation by countries

- Questions and answers on mentimeter 01:20 Mentimeter: on the satisfaction survey

o What are your insights from other countries?

o What would be a good next step for you?

o 2 Questions from the satisfaction survey Next step and setting up a follow-up

- Informing about next steps – some kind of reporting will come

01:25 Closing

- By Anssi Pekkarinen – encourage participants to continue collaboration with other processes.