Inadequate data, institutional arrangements and methodologies for measuring outcomes could jeopardize achieving NDC targets
JAKARTA – (Mar. 3, 2020) At a knowledge sharing and closing event in Jakarta last week, delegates celebrated over a decade of partnership, sharing lessons and results from the ASEAN Swiss Partnership on Social Forestry and Climate Change (ASFCC) funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Delegates reflected on lessons from ASFCC and explored the potential for enhancing collaborative action on social forestry, climate change and related issues of sustainable development, CIFOR launched a brief on “Laos’ Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC): Progress, opportunities, and challenges in the forestry sector.” The case of Lao PDR is particularly interesting as it was the first country in Asia to declare its Nationally Determined Contributions in 2015 and currently is developing a second NDC for submission to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the end of 2020.
NDCs are a key part of the strategy detailed in the 2015 U.N. Paris Agreement to prevent post-industrial average temperatures from rising to 1.5 degrees Celsius or higher. Each country is required to provide data on greenhouse gas emissions and reductions targets it aims to meet post-2020.
An early adopter in 2015, Laos’ efforts have met with mixed results, say a recently published brief jointly produced by the National University of Laos, the country’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
“Major challenges impeding the country’s efforts to achieve its forestry sector NDC targets are persistent and similar to those identified 10 years ago,” the report states, citing shortcomings that include failure to fully implement policies aimed at addressing causes of deforestation and forest degradation, poor coordination between sectors, lack of reliable data and credible methodologies for measuring outcomes.
While successes have been achieved and targets met in some sectors, e.g rural electrification with a target of 90 percent of rural population having access to electricity has been exceeded but the target of 70 percent forest cover has not been achieved. The forestry sector in NDCs will continue to lag behind, unless rigorous impact assessments of existing policies and initiatives on forest protection, development outcomes and other components are evaluated to determine how best to achieve national environmental, social and economic development goals.
ASFCC partner organizations CIFOR, World Agroforestry, Non-timber Forests Exchange Program, RECOFTC and the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture, have worked to promote regional cooperation on multifaceted, landscape-based concepts of ecosystem management to combat climate change.
At the two-day event, ASFCC delegates did not only review the transformative impact of a partnership which was conceived initially in 2007 and officially launched in 2011, but they explored potential opportunities for future collaboration.
Hosted by the ASEAN Working Group on Social Forestry, the ASEAN secretariat, Ministry of Environment and Forestry Indonesia and the Embassy of Switzerland in Indonesia, it was held at the ASEAN Secretariat Compound.
For further information, please contact:
Moira Moeliono
CIFOR Senior Associate
m.moeliono@cgiar.org
Pham Thu Thuy
Senior Scientist
t.pham@cgiar.org
Indah Waty
Research Consultant
I.Waty@cgiar.org
About CIFOR
CIFOR advances human well-being, equity and environmental integrity by conducting innovative research, developing partners’ capacity, and actively engaging in dialogue with all stakeholders to inform policies and practices that affect forests and people. CIFOR is a CGIAR Research Center, and leads the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). Our headquarters are in Bogor, Indonesia, with offices in Nairobi, Kenya, Yaounde, Cameroon, Lima, Peru, and Bonn, Germany.
