The FAO Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism is implementing the project “The Paris Agreement in action: Upscaling forest and landscape restoration to achieve Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)”. The project, which runs from 2018 – 2022, is funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI), which aims to assist countries in achieving their nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement through landscape restoration.
The project is implemented in three regions with high potential for forest stand increase and provision of ecosystem services through large-scale forest landscape restoration (FLR) programmes. Country participants that are part of the project concept include: the Pacific Islands (Philippines and Fiji), the Great Green Wall Region (Ethiopia and Niger) and the Mediterranean (Lebanon and Morocco).
More specifically, project activities will support the effective implementation of the Bonn Challenge, a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020, in several regional initiatives in order to expand forest and landscape restoration (FLR) efforts that contribute to several NDCs. To implement the NDC commitments, the project supports: (i) regional platforms focusing on knowledge sharing, capacity development, mobilisation of innovative funding and FLR monitoring, and (ii) the implementation of existing national FLR action plans/programmes and monitoring.
The regional component focuses on strengthening regional platforms/networks/initiatives to more efficiently promote both preparation and implementation of large-scale FLR programmes to achieve the Paris Agreement and the Bonn Challenge. In the three targeted regions, the project will support: i) the organisation of one high level event on the integration of FLR options within the NDCs in the context of the Paris Agreement; ii) specialised technical assistance to integrate FLR/LULUCF in investment frameworks of the NDCs and to build capacity on the preparation of concept notes/project proposals for dedicated land degradation and climate financing; iii) the organisation of capacity building workshops in each region to capitalise and share knowledge on key issues related to FLR/NDCs.
In the context of the Mediterranean regional component, the Secretariat of the Committee on Mediterranean Forestry Questions – Silva Mediterranea, the entity responsible for coordinating project activities, in collaboration with the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), is organising a regional training on climate finance. This training will take place from 4 to 7 November 2019 at the UfM Headquarters in Barcelona (Spain) and will aim to strengthen the capacity of Mediterranean countries to formulate and implement projects and programs with the potential to be financed by instruments like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) Fund.
The training will target staff from countries in the Mediterranean region responsible for the formulation and implementation of GCF and climate change projects and programs (LDN fund) for landscape restoration, with a specific focus on land degradation/desertification and forestry. This is the first of three capacity building events to be organised by the project at regional level in the Mediterranean.
The national Mediterranean components of the projects have also been recently launched in Morocco (10-11 June 2019) and Lebanon (9-12 July 2019) with two technical workshops aimed at preparing national operational plans and identifying partners to implement the activities on the ground.
More information is available on the FLRM website or please contact nicolas.picard@fao.org and valentina.garavaglia@fao.org from the Secretariat of Silva Mediterranea.
