The FAO-EU FLEGT Programme is carrying out an experience capitalization exercise to collect, analyse and share experiences, good practices and lessons learned during the implementation of the Phase III of the Programme. As a part of this effort, the Programme agreed to support the project entitled “Increasing Stakeholder Participation in Forest Law Reform Process: Case Studies from FAO-EU FLEGT Programme”. This project, carried out and co-financed by ClientEarth, includes a review of nine projects that focused on increasing stakeholder participation in legal reform processes in the following countries: the Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines. The publication includes the aggregate findings of the six focus countries, general analysis and recommendations.

Key messagesMulti-stakeholder forums (MSFs) are increasingly seen as essential for collaboration -- across different levels of government and among multiple constituencies-- due to the growing urgency to address climate change and transform development trajectories.A review of the scholarly literature reveals that more equitable and resilient MSFs require a shift in emphasis away from how to design projects toward designing engagement in a way that addresses a specific situation or context.Designing for engagement combines top-down with bottom-up approaches, starting with a period of research and meetings at upper levels to understand the potential challenges that local project implementers face within the broader context they are encountering.This process is engaged, committed and adaptive, supporting a spirit of co-learning among all actors, building mutual respect and trust over time.This approach has the best chance of resilience in the face of change or challenge, and of leading to equitable outcomes -- and is not fostered by the increasingly short-term nature of donor funding and the emphasis on simple quantitative impact indicators.

The Economic Benefits of Climate Action shows how well-designed policies can reduce the ECA region s carbon footprint while promoting growth opportunities and protecting the living standards of lower income households.

The 'Forests Sourcebook' provides practical operations-oriented guidance for forest sector engagement toward the goals of poverty reduction, conservation and economic development. Intended to guide World Bank lending activities and projects, the 'Forests Sourcebook' offers information useful to a broad audience of practitioners, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations. The 'Sourcebook was developed in partnership with members of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, including the Food and Agriculture Organization. The 'Sourcebook' provides background on key issues, lessons learned, and recommendations for practitioners on a number of topics including private sector engagement, forest governance, sustainable plantation and commercial harvesting, and forest information management systems. Giving insight into the complex interplay between different realms of development work that effect or are affected by forests, the 'Forests Sourcebook' is a valuable tool for any stakeholder involved in development or business projects that could have impact on forests.

This paper summarizes the current state of concepts and approaches for addressing deforestation in the trade, marketing, and production of agricultural commodities that have a disproportionate impact on forests at international, national, and landscape level. To date, predominant attention has been directed towards the role of the private sector and "consumer countries" that shape market regulation. This publication aims to complement the international discourse by generating a greater focus on the role of "producer country" governments at the national and local level to support efforts to decouple agricultural production from deforestation.

An area of tropical forest the size of England continues to be lost each year. This gives rise to around 17 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, greater than global emissions from transport. Addressing deforestation is as essential as decarbonising electricity or transport if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change. A failure to act on deforestation could double the cost of avoiding dangerous climate change to 2030. Deforestation is caused by a range of factors, many of which are exacerbated by a growing global population and increasing consumption. Halting deforestation requires: (a) support for rainforest nations to help them manage their development so that it does not allow continued deforestation; (b) management of the demand for commodities whose production encourages deforestation; and (c) the introduction of a mechanism to pay developing countries for maintaining, and in due course recreating, their forests. The UK needs to act in all three areas if its policies on deforestation are to be successful. Ignoring any one undermines the effectiveness and durability of action in the other areas. As part of this work the Government must: remove subsidies that contribute to deforestation, such as biofuels policy; develop sustainability standards for agricultural commodities; implement and enforce government timber procurement; and, seek an EU-wide ban on illegal timber imports combined with robust sanctions. Illegal timber imports are still a fact of life within the UK timber trade. The economic, environmental and development case for immediate action on deforestation is clear. But success is possible only if the international community works together effectively.

This book analyzes the wide range of issues that should be taken into account in forest-related legislation. It stresses that forest law must be understood in the context of the broader legal framework governing land use and land tenure, as well as international obligations related to trade, environmental protection, and human rights. The book also pays significant attention to institutional arrangements and governance practices relevant to forests, including decentralization, transparency, and law enforcement. The authors draw extensively on experience from around the world to provide tools for dealing with various forest management challlenges. The authors are experts in the field of forest law. Lawrence C. Christy is a Former Chief, Development Law Service, Legal Office, Food and Agricultre Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Charles E. Di Leva is Chief Counsel, Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development and International Law Unit (LEGEN), Legal Vice-Presidency, World Bank. Jonathan M. Lindsay is Senior Counsel with LEGEN, Legal Vice-Presidency, World Bank. Patrice Talla Takoukam is Counsel with LEGEN, Legal Vice-Presidency, World Bank.

When the guns are silenced, those who have survived armed conflict need food, water, shelter, the means to earn a living, and the promise of safety and a return to civil order. Meeting these needs while sustaining peace requires more than simply having governmental structures in place; it requires good governance. Natural resources are essential to sustaining people and peace in post-conflict countries, but governance failures often jeopardize such efforts. This book examines the theory, practice, and often surprising realities of post-conflict governance, natural resource management, and peacebuilding in fifty conflict-affected countries and territories. It includes thirty-nine chapters written by more than seventy researchers, diplomats, military personnel, and practitioners from governmental, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental organizations. The book highlights the mutually reinforcing relationship between natural resource management and good governance. Natural resource management is crucial to rebuilding governance and the rule of law, combating corruption, improving transparency and accountability, engaging disenfranchised populations, and building confidence after conflict. At the same time, good governance is essential for ensuring that natural resource management can meet immediate needs for post-conflict stability and development, while simultaneously laying the foundation for a sustainable peace. Drawing on analyses of the close relationship between governance and natural resource management, the book explores lessons from past conflicts and ongoing reconstruction efforts; illustrates how those lessons may be applied to the formulation and implementation of more effective governance initiatives; and presents an emerging theoretical and practical framework for policy makers, researchers, practitioners, and students. Governance, Natural Resources, and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding is part of a global initiative to identify and analyze lessons in post-conflict peacebuilding and natural resource management. The project has generated six books of case studies and analyses, with contributions from practitioners, policy makers, and researchers. Other books in this series address high-value resources, land, water, livelihoods, and assessing and restoring natural resources.

The book explores the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) – a highly controversial right. It is mainly discussed in the context of large-scale business projects on Indigenous territories but also with respect to the creation of protected areas and communities’ traditional resource rights. From a legal anthropological perspective, it attempts to disentangle the various coexisting understandings of FPIC and provide an explanation for the multiplicity of FPIC norms or – to put it in other words – its fragmentation. It examines the right- or stakeholders of FPIC, the scope of the consent requirement, the respect for self-determined decision-making, and the right to FPIC of women in different sociolegal fields. Moreover, it explores the impact of power relations, strategic alliances, and discourses within these fields and shows that the emerging FPIC norms are the result of norm negotiation processes. The fields that are examined include transnational law – more specifically, human rights, environmental, and development law -, the Liberian post-conflict forest and land legislation, and Liberian community forests as fields in which FPIC is operationalized. Liberia is quite unique in this respect. It is not only one of the few countries in Africa recognizing FPIC but has also begun implementing it. The book shows that based on the logic of a sociolegal field, legal identities are discursively created and determine the meaning of FPIC. Moreover, different actors can resort to different legalities shaping the emerging FPIC norm.