AT A GLANCE - About 60 million indigenous people are almost wholly dependent on forests and another 350 million people live within or adjacent to dense forests, depending on them to a high degree for subsistence and income.
- Forests are home to at least 80 percent of the world’s remaining terrestrial biodiversity.
- Deforestation accounts for an estimated 20 percent of global carbon emissions.
- Forests help to maintain the fertility of the soil, protect watersheds, and reduce the risk of natural disasters such as floods and landslides.
- Forests and the forest product industry are a source of economic growth and employment, with US$186 billion worth of global trade in primary wood products.
Lending Trends Sustainable management of forests is critical to the World Bank Group’s mission because of forests’ contribution to the livelihoods of the poor, the potential they offer for economic development, and the essential global environmental services they provide. Since the World Bank Group adopted a more proactive engagement in forests, embodied in the 2002 Forest Strategy, the forest portfolio has grown to US$675 million (FY08). The World Bank Group Forest Strategy In 2002, the World Bank Group adopted a new Forest Strategy that takes an integrated approach to the broad objectives of poverty alleviation, sustainable economic development, and environmental conservation. Notable areas of achievement include the following. Using forests for poverty alleviation and broadly shared growth. Local community involvement in sustainable forest management is a central element of forest projects. Through forest projects, the Bank has supported (for example) the establishment of forest owner associations in 184 of the 214 regions in Mexico; the creation of employment for over 70,000 forest-dependent poor in Honduras, 100,000 in Lao PDR, and 2.75 million in China; and the equitable sharing of benefits in Albania, by facilitating the transfer of management and use rights to 280 communities involving 400,000 people.
The poverty focus of Bank-financed forest projects and forest components in lending operations that are not formally classified as forest projects (e.g., livelihood, agriculture and rural development projects) has increased, as well as the integration of forest components into broader natural resource and rural development programs (e.g., projects in Gabon, Guatemala, and Albania).
Leading global efforts to improve forest governance and control illegal logging. Bank activities on forest governance have supported the creation of a more positive political climate for high-level regional discussions and increased transparency and accountability in the sector. The Bank has facilitated the process of three regional ministerial declarations (East Asia, Africa and Europe, and North Asia) and is now engaged in supporting follow-up actions. In Latin America, the Bank, in collaboration with regional partners, is also helping to catalyze high-level processes for improved compliance with forest legislation. Forest sector governance and institutional reforms have become a central focus in many client countries, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Georgia, Honduras, Indonesia, Madagascar, Romania, Russia, and Tanzania.
Promoting forest certification and sustainable forest management. The Bank has positively influenced the development of sustainable forest management (SFM) standards and independent certification schemes, including the development of international standards to assess the quality of certification schemes. Certified forest area has expanded significantly in Bolivia, Russia, and Eastern Europe, and prospects for SFM have increased in countries such as Cameroon and Indonesia.
Facilitating responsible corporate investments. Through the work of the International Finance Corporation, and in collaboration with the Program on Forests (PROFOR), the Bank Group is working to assist client country governments in China, India, Kenya, Russia, and South Africa to attract responsible domestic and foreign private sector investments to finance conservation and sustainable management of forest resources. This is achieved through improving investment climates, developing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and fostering company-community partnerships.
Enabling the conservation of ecosystem services. Global Environment Facility grants (totaling about US$110 million since FY02) have been associated or blended with IDA/IBRD financed capacity building to support the biodiversity/protected areas components of sector-wide programs in Cameroon, Gabon, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and other countries.
Guiding implementation of the forest strategy. The Bank has produced key products to guide implementation of the forest strategy, including the Forest Certification Assessment Guide (FCAG), the Forest Law Manual, Forest Sourcebook, the Poverty-Forest Linkages Toolkit, and publications on strengthening forest law enforcement and governance.
Looking to the Future The Bank will continue to emphasize and scale up its efforts to meet the goals set out in the 2002 Forest Strategy. Addressing poverty and forest governance by promoting greater recognition of the rights of local and indigenous groups and greater attention to land tenure, ownership, and issues of rights of access to resources. This includes stakeholder participation in the formulation and implementation of policies, strategies, and programs to foster community ownership and long-term sustainability of forest resources. It also includes strong application of Bank safeguard policies and requirements. The recently completed Forests Sourcebook provides an important resource in this context.
Enhancing the role of forests as an engine of economic growth and development by increasing investments in environmentally and socially sustainable plantations (especially in tropical countries), expanding forest certification and overall forest management, and encouraging responsible private sector investments.
Further mainstreaming forests in the Bank’s agenda, through greater inclusion of forest sector issues into Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and Country Assistance Strategies (CASs), and better alignment of GEF and IFC resources with the IDA/IBRD lending program, to address poverty and livelihood issues.
Assisting countries to integrate the global forest agenda and associated development opportunities into their own national strategies and policies by taking advantage of emerging economic and environmental opportunities to foster sustainable forest management. This includes integrating forest interdependencies into the design of agriculture, rural development, and natural resource management projects to ensure sustainable economic growth and rural poverty alleviation.
Fostering new sources of finance for sustainable forest management, forest conservation, and the fight against climate change. The Bank is piloting and testing opportunities to mitigate climate change and protect standing forests through carbon finance via the new Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). It aims to develop a strong partnership between developing and developed countries to strengthen incentives for avoided deforestation. Through the BioCarbon Fund (BioCF) the Bank is exploring opportunities in afforestation/reforestation, soil carbon, and reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation. Finally, the Bank Group is working with donors and potential recipients to design a Forest Investment Program (FIP) under the Climate Investment Funds. The design for a FIP is expected to be finalized by December 2008.
Delivering Results through Strategic Partnerships Through strategic partnerships and programs, such as the multi-donor Program on Forests (PROFOR), and the Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) initiative, the Bank is leveraging resources, generating cutting-edge analytical work, aligning stakeholder interests, enabling innovation, improving outreach, and scaling up impacts. In collaboration with FAO and IUCN and with support from IIED, the World Bank is supporting the implementation of the Growing Forest Partnerships (GFP) initiative, which was informed by an independent global consultation of over 600 forest stakeholders, including a special survey of Indigenous Peoples. The GFP aims to facilitate bottom-up, multi-stakeholder partnership processes in developing countries to identify national priorities and, therefore, to better access the increasing forest financing being made available through a wide variety of international means and mechanisms (e.g., carbon finance, private sector investments, ODA, etc.). The GFP also aims to provide a platform to ensure that marginalized, forest-dependent groups can participate in the formulation of national priorities and be included in the international dialogue on forests. The GFP will work through locally based institutions and will build on existing partnership structures. The World Bank Group supports this initiative with start-up funding of $15 million for the first 3 years through its Development Grant Facility. Seeking to facilitate multi-stakeholder input on the role of forests in a future climate change regime, the World Bank Group collaborated with The Forests Dialogue to host a high-level Global Forest Leaders Forum on Forests and Climate Change on September 16-17, 2008. More than 150 leaders from a wide range of stakeholder groups built consensus around six guiding principles on how to manage forests if they are to contribute to mitigating and adapting to climate change. For more information, please see the website: www.worldbank.org/forests ### Media Contacts: Roger Morier: (202) 473-5675 Email: rmorier@worldbank.org Robert Bisset: (202) 458-5191 Email: rbisset@worldbank.org Anne Davis Gillet: (202) 458-4822 Email: adavis@worldbank.org Updated October 2008 |
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