FAO_Forestry Millenium Development Goals

8/3/2019 FAO_Forestry Millenium Development Goals

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FAO- FORESTRY MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

(Summary-prepared by Mehmet Metaj: [email protected])

Introduction

1. World leaders adopted the Millennium Declaration at the Millennium Summit inSeptember 2000. The Declaration consolidates the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs), reinforcing goals agreed in world summits and global conferences held during

the 1990s, including the World Food Summit. Each of the eight MDGs (see box 1) hasnumerical targets to be achieved by the year 2015. Indicators have been identified for the

targets to monitor progress. The proportion of land area covered by forest globally is one

of the indicators for the seventh MDG.

Box 1: UN Millennium Development Goals

1. Eradication of extreme poverty andhunger

2. Achieve universal primary education3. Promote gender equality and empower

women

4. Reduce child mortality5. Improve maternal health

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other

diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

8. Develop a global partnership fordevelopment

2. In addition to quantitative, time-

bound targets, the Millennium

Declaration calls for other actions,including intensified efforts for themanagement, conservation and

sustainable development of all types

of forests, an internationalcommitment to sustainable forest

management made in 1992 at the

United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) andembodied in the Forest Principles and Chapter 11 of Agenda 21. Subsequent

intergovernmental deliberations to promote progress towards sustainable forest

management took place in the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) andIntergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) from 1995 to 2000, and continue in the

United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) as well as in other fora.

3. The recognition at UNCED of the connection between sustainable forest management

and sustainable development was reinforced ten years later at the World Summit on

Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002. There,countries stated that the achievement of sustainable forest management is an essential

goal of sustainable development and that it is a critical means to eradicate poverty,significantly reduce deforestation, halt the loss of forest biodiversity and land and

resource degradation and improve food security and access to safe drinking water and

affordable energy .
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4. This document examines the contribution of forests -- referring collectively to natural

and planted forests, other wooded lands and trees outside forests -- to the achievement of

the MDGs. It underscores the need to increase international commitment and actiontowards sustainable forest management as a vehicle for sustainable development.

Forests and the Millennium Development Goals

5. Forests play a role, directly or indirectly, in most of the MDGs through their multiple

social, economic and environmental functions. This document focuses on the two goals towhich forests make the most direct contribution: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger,

and ensuring environmental sustainability.

6. The indirect contributions of forests to other MDGs are, however, worth noting.

Forests help reduce child mortality and improve maternal health by improving foodsecurity and access to natural medicines. Forest-derived income helps enable rural

families to send their children to primary school. Gender-sensitive forest programmes

around the world are helping to empower women and improve their access to forest-derived benefits. Various forest-related measures are also being taken to mitigate the

negative impacts of HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

7. Much has been written about the poverty-deforestation relationship; in many places,

poverty (including food insecurity) is an underlying cause of deforestation and forestdegradation. More recently, attention has been paid to the links between forests and

poverty reduction and between forests and food security. Tens of millions of people

depend on forests as a major source of subsistence and cash income, while hundreds of

millions of people depend on forests to supplement their livelihoods (Angelsen andWunder,2003).

8. Forests and trees outside forests produce wood for fuel and other purposes (e.g.

construction materials, furniture, paper, etc.) and a wide range of non-wood forestproducts (e.g., bushmeat, fodder, fibres, oils and medicines, etc.) for subsistence use and

for sale in local markets. Forests can provide crucial safety nets, keeping many poor rural

people from sinking deeper into poverty or serving as a lifeline in times of emergency

(see summary in FAO, 2003).

9. Forests have the potential to help people rise out of poverty, for example through

securing forest-based employment and developing small-scale forest enterprises. An

estimated 12.9 million people are employed in the industrial forest sector, and analyses

by the International Labour Organization indicate that twice that many (in particularlyfrom the poorer sectors of society) may be expected to be involved in the informal sector

(e.g., in the collection and sale of fuelwood and non-wood forest products) (Lebedys,

2004).

10. Payment for environmental services from forests is emerging as a possible source of

income, but how large and widespread the transfers will be (and the degree to which poor


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people will benefit) is still uncertain. This potentially important area merits further

development.

11. Failure to achieve environmental stability will undermine social and economicdevelopment efforts. Forests play critical roles in sustaining the health of the environment

by mitigating climate change, conserving biological diversity, maintaining clean andreliable water resources, controlling erosion, protecting agricultural soils, sustaining and

enhancing land productivity, protecting coastal and marine resources, providing low costand renewable energy, and enhancing the urban environment. These environmental

services are well documented and their social benefits quite well understood, but the

means to capture their economic values are as yet underdeveloped.

12. It is important to consider not only the environmental services that forests provide,but what the environmental impacts might be if the supply of forest goods decreased.

Wood is a source of renewable energy and construction and packing materials.

Substitutes for these are not as environmentally friendly.

13. The contributions of trees outside forests, including in agroforestry systems, to the

reduction of poverty and hunger, environmental sustainability and other MDGs have been

less thoroughly analyzed than those of forests, but are clearly significant (Garrity, 2004).

Rural dwellers around the world rely on trees on farms and in silvopastoral systems forboth production and protection. Trees on farmlands, in grazing systems and scattered in

the landscape are a source of products for subsistence use and for sale. Trees contribute to

food security and poverty alleviation by improving agricultural productivity, diversifyingincome and reducing risk. Improved understanding of the role of trees outside forests,

particularly in agroforestry systems, to poverty alleviation, food security and

environmental sustainability is needed, and agroforestry should be a recognized part of

countries strategies and programmes to achieve the MDGs.

Issues and Opportunities for Forest-Based Action

14. Strategies for targeting poverty reduction through the forest sector have been

identified by various organizations and in recent meetings. The Forum on How

Forests can Reduce Poverty, a meeting organized in 2001 by FAO, with the supportof the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), outlined

ways in which trees and forests can contribute to food security and poverty

reduction

Box 2: Agenda for action: poverty reduction

through forests

1. Strengthening rights, capabilities andgovernance to benefit the poor

2. Reducing vulnerability of the poor

3. Capturing emerging opportunities, e.g.improving access to markets

(FAO, 2001). The meeting

developed a four-point Agendafor Action to address the barriers preventing the poor from

benefiting from forests and forest

resources (see box 2).

15. The MDGs call for the

integration of the principles of


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20. Intersectoral coordination is important for the achievement of all MDGs, but is

particularly critical for reducing poverty and hunger and ensuring environmental

sustainability, which are highly cross-sectoral by nature. Improved intersectoralcooperation and coordination will help efforts both to integrate the principles of

sustainable development into forest-related policies and to integrate forests into

sustainable development plans.

21. Forest-based poverty reduction efforts tend to be linked to other land uses and shouldform a part of rural development strategies. Conversely, the potential for forests and trees

outside forests to contribute to environmental sustainability cannot be fully realized

without intersectoral cooperation and coordination. Intersectoral coordination, althoughdifficult and time consuming, is necessary for sound decisions on land use and resource

allocation, particularly when there are trade-offs between national development goals.

For example, it is inevitable that some forest land will be converted to agriculture in orderto reduce poverty and hunger, but this will have economic, environmental and social

impacts. Countries need to have effective cross-sectoral planning mechanisms to identify

those lands that would make a relatively greater contribution to sustainable developmentif converted from forest to other land uses, and to minimize the negative impacts of landcover and land use changes.

Monitoring and Assessing Progress

22. The Millennium +5 Summit, a high-level meeting scheduled to take place at UN

Headquarters from 14 to 16 September 2005, will undertake a comprehensive review ofprogress in achieving the MDGs and fulfilling commitments made in the major UN

conferences and summits in the economic, social and related fields. Data on the forest-

related indicator -- the proportion of land area covered by forest, will be reported in

conjunction with the seventh MDG: ensure environmental sustainability. A progressreport by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs includes reverse loss of

forests as a target under that goal.1 A broader picture of the contribution of forests to

sustainable development will be provided in the storyline for the seventh MDG. Datafrom FAOs global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) will be used for the MDG forest

indicator, and FAO is collaborating with other UN entities and international organizations

in drafting the storyline.

23. Agreement on a measurable target on forests within the context of the MDGs could

serve a variety of purposes and help boost the implementation of agreed actions on

sustainable forest management. It could act as a useful reminder of the contribution of

forests to sustainable development. It would provide a basis to assess and monitorprogress, and thus signal whether current efforts are sufficient. It could help orient the

future intergovernmental dialogue on forests by providing a means to indicate where

capacity building is needed, new and additional resources would be beneficial, marketaccess is required and new technology is essential. Within such a global target, countries

could set as many already do their own national targets related to sustainable forest

management in order to contribute to the achievement of the global target, within theirnational priorities and on the basis of the agreements made at the international level.
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24. Data compiled by FAO provide the basis for monitoring trends in forest resources at

the global level. FAO would thus be in a good position to provide technical inputs to

intergovernmental efforts to establish an internationally agreed target related to forests atthe global level. Intergovernmental deliberations on a forest target could take place

within the international arrangement on forests. The establishment of such a target could

be considered in the review of progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goalscarried out under the auspices of the United Nations General Assembly.

25. The Provisional Agenda of the Ministerial Meeting on Forests on 14 March 2005

foresees discussion on the potential value of a forest-related target at global level. Should

Ministers endorse the development of such a target, they could call upon FAO to assist inthis effort. COFO may wish to provide guidance to FAO on a process for providing

technical inputs to support an intergovernmental dialogue to develop a target.

FAO Forestry Support to the Millennium Development Goals

26. FAO is actively supporting the achievement of the MDGs, in particular the first andseventh goals through its work programme on forestry.

27. The over-arching priority of FAO forestry programmes is to assist countries in their

efforts to undertake sustainable forest management. FAOs work on forest management

and conservation, including in mountains, drylands and other marginal areas; forestassessment and statistics; forest sector outlook studies; policy development and

institution strengthening, especially through national forest programmes; community-

based forestry and agroforestry; and wood and non-wood forest products contribute to

this. The Regional Forestry Commissions provide a forum for countries to shareknowledge and experiences. FAOs support to regional and international processes of

criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management is also relevant. TheDepartments information and outreach function, including through the State of the

Worlds Forests report and Unasylva, helps raise awareness of the contribution of

sustainable forest management to the MDGs.

28. FAOs long-standing work on promoting sustainable forest management contributes

to the achievement of the seventh MDG ensuring environmental sustainability. Morerecently FAO has addressed its role in enhancing the contribution of forests to the

reduction of poverty and hunger. The Medium Term Plan 2006 2011 includes a

programme entity for Forests, Poverty Alleviation and Food Security, and another forParticipatory Forestry and Sustainable Livelihoods, consistent with endorsement of the

FAO Council in 2002 and of COFO in 2003 of poverty alleviation as an emerging

priority in the Forestry Departments programme of work. The programmes are workingthrough both normative activities and the field programme to promote sustainable

livelihoods, poverty alleviation and food security.

29. Specific activities of the Forestry Department related to poverty reduction and which

consequently help to achieve the MDGs include:


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support to the development of enabling policy and legal frameworks addressing

access and use of forest lands and resources;

community-based forest enterprise development, including through partnershipsbetween foresters, communities and the private sector;

development of modern wood energy systems and forest products markets for

rural villages; participatory diagnosis of forest policy concerns;

analyses of the economic aspects of forestry-poverty links; and

projects focused on poverty reduction and sustainable livelihoods in severalcountries through the forestry field programme and the Special Programme on

Food Security.

30. From an early stage, FAOs Special Programme on Food Security recognized the role

of forests in food security through contributing to agricultural productivity and throughincome diversification. The forest component of country activities has increased over

time.

31. An Inter-Divisional Task Force on Poverty (ITP), established in March 2002 within

the Forestry Department, has developed a framework for poverty reduction andcollaboration on activities related to forests, poverty alleviation and food security. The

Forestry Department also collaborates in the corporate FAO Livelihood Support

Programme (LSP), a multi-Departmental initiative to promote good governance, adaptivemulti-stakeholder policy-making processes, knowledge and information sharing on

livelihood-oriented forestry, and effective communication. Six Central African countries

are supported in their efforts to realize the contribution of non-wood forest products from

forests and trees outside forests for food security.

32. Through its Regular Programme and in collaboration with the National ForestProgramme Facility, the Forestry Department provides direct support to countries to

strengthen coherence and synergies between national forest programmes and broader

sustainable development policy and planning processes, and to encourage civil societyparticipation in decisions about forests. This is a key mechanism for assisting countries to

adjust their policies and strategies so as to incorporate forests into sustainable

development and vice versa.

33. With the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, afforestation and reforestation projects

under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), may also contribute to the first and

seventh MDGs. FAO has begun to integrate the Protocols CDM into national forest

programmes and makes special efforts to enable and facilitate small-scale projects.

34. At the international level, FAO, in collaboration with other partners, is playing a key

role in efforts to increase commitment to and implementation of sustainable forest

management through, among other things, its Chairmanship of the Collaborative

Partnership on Forests, an interagency partnership that enhances cooperation on forestsand supports the UNFF process. FAOs role in assisting the monitoring of progress in the

MDGs is indicated above. In addition, FAO is preparing the chapter on forests in the


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Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) of the New

Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD), a key regional mechanism to help

Africa achieve the MDGs and effective overall development.

Guidance from the Committee on Forestry

35. The Committee on Forestry may wish to advise that, in future programmes in support

of the Millennium Development Goals, FAO:

i. implement related recommendations from the Ministerial Meeting on Forests,

scheduled for 14 March 2005, including the Organizations possible role in aprocess for providing technical inputs to support an intergovernmental dialogue

on a forest-related target at global level;

ii. undertake analyses and disseminate information on the contribution of forests andsustainable forest management to the attainment of the MDGs;

iii. through its Regular Programme and the NFP Facility, assist countries to address

MDGs in their national forest programmes, integrate forests and agroforestry intotheir Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and rural development

strategies, and strengthen intersectoral coordination;

iv. assist countries to develop strategies specifically designed to realize forests

potential contribution to the MDGs and to develop tools for forest practitioners atthe sub-national and forest management unit level to help implement them;

v. enhance the Special Programme on Food Security as a mechanism to help

countries realize the contributions of forests and trees to food security; andvi. continue to assist the United Nations in the monitoring of progress in the

achievement of the MDGs.

References

Angelsen, A. and Wunder, S. 2003. Exploring the forest-poverty link: key concepts,issues and research implications. CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 40.

FAO and Department for International Development, UK. 2001. How forests can

reduce poverty. FAO, Rome.

FAO. 2003. State of the Worlds Forests 2003. FAO, Rome.

Garrity, D. 2004. Agroforestry and the achievement of the Millennium Development

Goals. Agroforestry Systems 61: 5-17.

Gilmour, D.; Y. Malla; and M. Nurse. 2004. Linkages between community forestry andpoverty. Regional Community Forestry Training Center for Asia and the Pacific,

Bangkok.

Grosnow, J. 2003. Review of poverty alleviation through forestry activity. In:Proceedings of the FAO Advisory Committee on Paper and Wood Products, Oaxaca,

Mexico, 8-9 May 2003.

Lebedys, A. In press. Trends and current status of the contribution of the forest sector to

national economies. FAO, Rome.

World Bank. 2004. Sustaining Forests: A Development Strategy. World Bank,

Washington, D.C.


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