International Arrangement on Forests Beyond 2015

E/RES/2015/33View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the Economic and Social Council, under agenda item 18k United Nations Forum on Forests, published in 2015.

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

2 entities

Entity	(Sub-)Programme	Title	Total mandates cited	Expenditure
	Subprogramme 8	Sustainable forest management	11
	Subprogramme 7	Forests and the forest industry	14

Historical expenditure covers the complete programme or subprogramme, not this mandate. For an overview of all UN entities and programmes, see UN entities and programmes.

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

2 entities

Entity	(Sub-)Programme	Title	Total mandates cited	Expenditure
	Subprogramme 8	Sustainable forest management	11	—
	Subprogramme 7	Forests and the forest industry	14	—

Historical expenditure covers the complete programme or subprogramme, not this mandate. For an overview of all UN entities and programmes, see UN entities and programmes.

What subjects does this mandate have?

15 subjects

Conferences Data Collection Environmental Agreements Financing Forest Management Forest Policy Forests Groups of Experts International Cooperation Programme Evaluation Programme Implementation Programme Planning Regional Cooperation Sustainable Forestry Working Groups

What’s in this document?

137 operative paragraphs

I.International arrangement on forests beyond 2015

Decides:

To strengthen the international arrangement on forests and extend it to 2030;

That the international arrangement on forests is composed of the United Nations Forum on Forests and its Member States, the secretariat of the Forum, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, the Global Forest Financing Facilitation Network⁷ and the Trust Fund for the United Nations Forum on Forests;

⁷See paragraph 13 (a) of the present resolution.

That the international arrangement on forests involves as partners interested international, regional and subregional organizations and processes, major groups and other stakeholders;

That the objectives of the international arrangement on forests are:

To promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, in particular the implementation of the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests;Error: Reference source not found

To enhance the contribution of all types of forests and trees outside forests to the post-2015 development agenda;

iii

To enhance cooperation, coordination, coherence and synergies on forest-related issues at all levels;

To foster international cooperation, including North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation, as well as public-private partnerships and cross-sectoral cooperation at all levels;

To support efforts to strengthen forest governance frameworks and means of implementation, in accordance with the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests, in order to achieve sustainable forest management;

To strengthen long-term political commitment to the achievement of the objectives listed in paragraph 1 (d) of the present resolution;

That the international arrangement on forests beyond 2015 should operate in a transparent, effective, efficient and accountable manner and should provide added value and contribute to enhanced coherence, cooperation and synergies with respect to other forest-related agreements, processes and initiatives;

Emphasizes that the objectives of the international arrangement on forests beyond 2015 should be achieved through the actions, individually and collectively, of Member States, international, regional and subregional organizations and processes, major groups and other stakeholders;

II.United Nations Forum on Forests beyond 2015

Decides that the core functions of the Forum are:

To provide a coherent, open, transparent and participatory global platform for policy development, dialogue, cooperation and coordination on issues related to all types of forests, including emerging issues, in an integrated and holistic manner, including through cross-sectoral approaches;

To promote, monitor and assess the implementation of sustainable forest management, in particular the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests and the achievement of its global objectives on forests, and mobilize, catalyse and facilitate access to financial, technical and scientific resources to this end;

To promote governance frameworks and enabling conditions at all levels to achieve sustainable forest management;

To promote coherent and collaborative international policy development on issues related to all types of forests;

To strengthen high-level political engagement, with the participation of major groups and other stakeholders, in support of sustainable forest management;

Reaffirms that, as set out in paragraph 4 of Economic and Social Council resolution 2000/35, the Forum is a subsidiary body of the Council with universal membership, which operates under the rules of procedure of the functional commissions and reports to the Council and, through the Council, to the General Assembly;

Decides that the Forum shall continue to operate according to the provisions specified in paragraphs 4 (a) to (e) of resolution 2000/35 unless otherwise provided in the present resolution;

Also decides to improve and strengthen the functioning of the Forum beyond 2015 by requesting the Forum:

To carry out its core functions on the basis of a strategic plan for the period 2017–2030, as defined in section XI of the present resolution;

To restructure its sessions and enhance its intersessional work to maximize the impact and relevance of its work, including by fostering an exchange of experiences and lessons learned among countries, regional, subregional and non-governmental partners and the Collaborative Partnership on Forests;

To hold annual sessions of the Forum for a period of five days;

To convene high-level segments not to exceed two days during sessions of the Forum, as required, to accelerate action towards sustainable forest management and address forest-related global challenges and emerging issues; such segments may include a partnership forum involving the heads of member organizations of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and leaders from the private sector, philanthropic and civil society organizations and other major groups;

To enhance the contributions to the work of the Forum by country-led and similar initiatives by ensuring that they directly support the priorities of the Forum as defined in its four-year work programmes and that their outcomes are considered by the Forum, and update the Forum guidelines in this regard;

In line with paragraph 6 (b) of the present resolution, to dedicate the odd-year session of the Forum to discussions on implementation and technical advice for the purpose of focusing the attention of Member States on the specific tasks listed below; the summaries of these discussions, including possible proposals, will be reported to the Forum at its subsequent sessions in the even years for further consideration and recommendations. The specific tasks are:

To assess the progress in, and make possible proposals on, the implementation of the resolutions and decisions of the Forum, the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests and the strategic plan;

To assess the progress in, and make possible proposals on, enhancing policy coherence, dialogue and cooperation on forests, fostering synergies in global forest-related processes and strengthening the common international understanding of the concept of sustainable forest management as set out in the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests;

iii

To monitor and assess the work and the performance of the strengthened facilitative process;

To review and advise on the availability of resources for sustainable forest management funding, including the strengthened facilitative process, and ensure that its operation is consistent with guidelines to be approved by the Forum;

To review and make possible proposals on the operation of the Forum Trust Fund;

In line with paragraph 6 (b) of the present resolution, to dedicate the odd-year sessions of the Forum:

To serving as an opportunity for the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and its member organizations, regional and subregional organizations and processes, major groups and other relevant stakeholders to provide technical advice and input to the Forum;

To facilitating the sharing of knowledge and best practices, including the science-policy interface;

III.Non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests beyond 2015

Reaffirms the continued validity and value of the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests, including its global objectives on forests, and emphasizes the need to strengthen and catalyse its implementation at all levels, taking into account forest-related developments since 2007, including developments in the context of the Rio conventions;Error: Reference source not found

Decides to extend the timeline of the global objectives on forests to 2030, in line with the post-2015 development agenda, and to rename the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests the “United Nations forest instrument”, recognizing that the voluntary, non-binding character of the forest instrument, as set out in principle 2 (a) of the instrument, remains unchanged;

Recommends to the General Assembly that it adopt the modifications referred to in paragraph 8 of the present resolution during its seventieth session and not later than December 2015;

Urges Member States to utilize the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests as an integrated framework for national action and international cooperation for implementing sustainable forest management and forest-related aspects of the post-2015 development agenda;

IV.Catalysing financing for implementation

Reiterates that there is no single solution to address all of the needs in terms of forest financing and that a combination of actions is required at all levels, by all stakeholders and from all sources, public and private, domestic and international, bilateral and multilateral;

Welcomes the positive work carried out by the facilitative process to date, and recognizes that it has yet to fulfil its potential as set out in the resolutions contained in the reports of the Forum on the special session of its ninth session⁸ and on its ninth session;⁹

⁸E/2009/118, sect. I.B.

⁹Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 2011, Supplement No. 22 (E/2011/42), chap. I, sect. B.

Decides, in order to strengthen and make the facilitative process more effective:

That the name of the facilitative process shall be changed to the “Global Forest Financing Facilitation Network”;

To set clear priorities for the strengthened facilitative process in the strategic plan, as described in section XI of the present resolution;

That it should promote the design of national forest financing strategies to mobilize resources for sustainable forest management, including existing national initiatives, within the framework of national forest programmes or their equivalent, to facilitate access to existing and emerging financing mechanisms, including the Global Environment Facility and the Green Climate Fund, consistent with their mandates, in order to implement sustainable forest management;

That it should serve as a clearing house on existing, new and emerging financing opportunities and as a tool for sharing lessons learned from successful projects, building on the Collaborative Partnership on Forests online sourcebook for forest financing;

That it should ensure that special consideration is given to the special needs and circumstances of Africa, the least developed countries, low-forest-cover countries, high-forest-cover countries, medium-forest-cover low-deforestation countries and small island developing States, as well as countries with economies in transition, in gaining access to funds;

To enhance the capacity of the secretariat to effectively and efficiently manage the strengthened facilitative process;

To strengthen collaboration with the Collaborative Partnership on Forests in implementing the activities of the strengthened facilitative process;

Also decides, with the aim of strengthening the facilitative process:

To request the secretariat, in consultation with the members of the Forum and the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, to make recommendations on ways to further increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the operation of the strengthened facilitative process and submit them for consideration by the Forum at its session in 2018;

To welcome the report of the secretariat of the Global Environment Facility to the Forum on the mobilization of financial resources through the sustainable forest management/REDD-plus incentive programme under the fifth replenishment of the Facility, and invite the secretariat of the Facility to periodically provide information on the mobilization of financial resources and funds that are dedicated to sustainable forest management;

To also welcome the decision taken by the Assembly of the Global Environment Facility at its session in May 2014 to include a sustainable forest management strategy in the sixth replenishment period of the Facility (2014–2018) to support the sustainable management of all types of forests;

To encourage eligible Member States, taking into account the cross-sectoral nature of sustainable forest management, to make full use of the existing potential of the sustainable forest management strategy under the sixth replenishment of the Global Environment Facility to harness synergies across the focal areas of the Facility in order to further reinforce the importance of sustainable forest management for integrating environmental and development aspirations;

To invite the Council of the Global Environment Facility to request the secretariat of the Facility to discuss with the secretariat of the Forum arrangements to facilitate collaboration between the Facility and the Forum to support eligible countries in gaining access to funding for sustainable forest management;

To request the secretariat of the Forum to engage in discussions with the secretariat of the Global Environment Facility in order to facilitate collaboration between the Facility and the Forum to support eligible countries in gaining access to funding for sustainable forest management, and to report to the Forum on this issue;

Invites the Global Environment Facility to consider:

Options for establishing a new focal area on forests during the next replenishment of the Facility and continuing to seek to improve existing forest finance modalities;

Designating among its staff a liaison to serve as a link between the Forum and the Facility, in order to facilitate access to funding for sustainable forest management;

V.Monitoring, assessment and reporting

Decides:

To invite Member States to continue to monitor and assess progress towards implementing sustainable forest management, including the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests and the global objectives on forests, and to submit on a voluntary basis national progress reports to the Forum;

To note the ongoing efforts of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and its members and other relevant entities and processes to work jointly to further streamline and harmonize reporting, reduce reporting burdens and synchronize data collection, taking into account the collaborative forest resources questionnaire developed as part of the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015, in order to foster synergy and coherence;

To request the secretariat of the Forum, in consultation with Member States, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and its members and other relevant entities and processes, as well as criteria and indicators processes, to propose for consideration by the Forum at its next session a cycle and a format for national reporting and the enhancement of voluntary monitoring, assessment and reporting under the international arrangement on forests as part of the strategic plan referred to in section XI of the present resolution, taking into account and utilizing existing data collection mechanisms;

To request the secretariat of the Forum to continue to make the reports on its sessions, as well as other relevant inputs, available to relevant United Nations bodies and other international forest-related organizations, instruments and intergovernmental processes;

VI.Secretariat of the Forum

Decides that the secretariat of the Forum:

Should continue:

To service and support the Forum, its Bureau and related intersessional activities, including by organizing and supporting meetings, providing operational and logistical support and preparing documentation;

To administer the Forum Trust Fund consistent with guidance provided by the Forum, including regular and transparent reporting;

iii

To manage the strengthened facilitative process;

To promote inter-agency collaboration, including by serving as a member of and providing secretariat services to the Collaborative Partnership on Forests;

To provide, upon request, technical support to country-led initiatives and similar initiatives led by international, regional and subregional organizations and processes, and major groups in support of the priorities of the Forum;

To liaise with and facilitate the participation and involvement of countries, organizations, major groups and other stakeholders in activities of the Forum, including intersessional activities;

Should perform the following additional functions:

Service and support the working group of the Forum, including by organizing and supporting meetings, providing operational and logistical support and preparing documentation;

Manage the Global Forest Financing Facilitation Network and implement its activities in collaboration with relevant members of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests;

iii

Promote coherence, coordination and cooperation on forest-related issues, including by liaising with the secretariats of the Rio conventions;

Work within the United Nations system to support countries in aligning forests and the international arrangement on forests with their considerations on the post-2015 development agenda;

Reaffirms that the secretariat of the Forum continues to be located at United Nations Headquarters in New York;

Recommends to the General Assembly that it consider strengthening the secretariat of the Forum, taking into account the provisions of the present resolution;

VII.Collaborative Partnership on Forests

Decides that the core functions of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests are:

To support the work of the Forum and its member countries;

To provide scientific and technical advice to the Forum, including on emerging issues;

To enhance coherence as well as policy and programme cooperation and coordination at all levels among its member organizations, including through joint programming and the submission of coordinated proposals to their respective governing bodies, consistent with their mandates;

To promote the implementation of the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests, including the achievement of its global objectives on forests, and the contribution of forests to the post-2015 development agenda;

Reaffirms that the Collaborative Partnership on Forests should continue:

To receive guidance from the Forum and submit coordinated inputs and progress reports to sessions of the Forum;

To operate in an open, transparent and flexible manner;

To undertake periodic reviews of its effectiveness;

Encourages the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and its member organizations:

To strengthen the Partnership by formalizing its working modalities, including through consideration of a multilateral memorandum of understanding, and by developing procedures for its effective functioning and operation;

To identify ways to stimulate broader participation by existing member organizations in its various activities;

To assess its membership and the potential added value of additional members with significant forest-related expertise;

To identify ways to actively involve major groups and other stakeholders in activities of the Partnership;

To develop a workplan, aligned with the strategic plan referred to in section XI of the present resolution, to identify priorities for collective actions by all of the members of the Partnership or subsets of members and the resource implications of such actions;

To prepare periodic reports on the Partnership activities, achievements and resource allocations suitable for a wide range of audiences, including potential donors;

To further develop and expand its thematic joint initiatives, taking into account the strengths and focuses of the members of the Partnership;

Invites the governing bodies of member organizations of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests to include in their work programmes dedicated funding to support Partnership activities, as well as budgeted activities supporting the priorities of the Forum as outlined in the strategic plan referred to in section XI of the present resolution, consistent with their mandates;

Calls upon Member States, as well as other members of the governing bodies of member organizations of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, to support the work of the Partnership, including by considering dedicated funding for Partnership activities consistent with the respective mandates of Partnership members as an essential strategy for improving cooperation, synergies and coherence on forest issues at all levels;

VIII.Regional and subregional involvement

Requests the Forum to strengthen its collaboration with relevant regional and subregional forest-related mechanisms, institutions and instruments, organizations and processes in order to facilitate the implementation of the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests, including the achievement of its global objectives on forests, as well as to facilitate their inputs to sessions of the Forum;

Requests the secretariat of the Forum to consult with relevant regional and subregional forest-related mechanisms, institutions and instruments, organizations and processes on means to enhance collaboration between them and the Forum, including regarding the implementation of the strategic plan and the quadrennial programmes of work referred to in section XI of the present resolution;

Invites relevant regional and subregional mechanisms, institutions and instruments, organizations and processes in a position to do so to consider, consistent with their mandates, developing or strengthening programmes on sustainable forest management, including facilitating the implementation of the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests and relevant aspects of the post-2015 development agenda, as well as to provide coordinated inputs and recommendations to sessions of the Forum;

Invites Member States to consider, on a voluntary basis and as appropriate, establishing or strengthening regional and subregional processes or platforms for forest policy development, dialogue and coordination to promote sustainable forest management while seeking to avoid fragmentation;

IX.Involvement of major groups and other stakeholders

Recognizes the importance of the continued and enhanced participation of major groups and other stakeholders in the sessions of the Forum and its intersessional activities;

Decides, in this regard, that the provisions of paragraphs 14 to 16 of General Assembly resolution 67/290 of 9 July 2013 apply mutatis mutandis to the Forum in view of the existing modalities and practices of the Forum;

Invites major groups and other stakeholders to enhance their contributions to the work of the international arrangement on forests beyond 2015;

Invites Member States to consider enhancing the participation and contributions of representatives of major groups and other stakeholders in country-led initiatives;

Requests the secretariat of the Forum to promote the involvement of major groups and other stakeholders in the work of the Forum, in particular leaders from the private and non-governmental sectors, including forest industries, local communities and philanthropic organizations, and to enhance the interaction of the Forum with such stakeholders;

X.International arrangement on forests and the post-2015 development agenda

Stresses the need to ensure coherence and consistency between the international arrangement on forests and the post-2015 development agenda as well as with multilateral forest-related agreements;

Decides that the Forum should offer to contribute to the implementation, follow-up and review of the forest-related aspects of the post-2015 development agenda, including its forest-related goals and targets;

Affirms that the Forum should also offer to contribute to the work of the high-level political forum on sustainable development;

Invites the Forum to consider, in the context of its strategic plan, its role in and contribution to the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda;

XI.Strategic plan

Decides that the Forum should develop a concise strategic plan for the period 2017–2030 to serve as a strategic framework to enhance the coherence of and guide and focus the work of the international arrangement on forests and its components;

Also decides that the strategic plan should be aligned with the objectives of the international arrangement on forests and should incorporate a mission and vision, the global objectives on forests and the forest-related aspects of the post-2015 development agenda, taking into account significant forest-related developments in other forums, as well as identify the roles of different actors and the framework for reviewing implementation, and outline a communication strategy to raise awareness of the work of the arrangement;

Requests the Forum to operationalize the strategic plan through quadrennial programmes of work that set out priority actions and resource needs, beginning with the period 2017–2020;

XII.Review of the international arrangement on forests

Requests the Forum to undertake in 2024 a midterm review of the effectiveness of the international arrangement on forests in achieving its objectives, as well as a final review in 2030, and, on that basis, to submit recommendations to the Council relating to the future course of the arrangement;

Decides that, in the context of the midterm review in 2024, the Forum could consider:

A full range of options, including a legally binding instrument on all types of forests, the strengthening of the current arrangement and the continuation of the current arrangement;

A full range of financing options, inter alia, the establishment of a voluntary global forest fund, in order to mobilize resources from all sources in support of the sustainable management of all types of forests;

Notes that the establishment of a global forest fund could be further considered if there is a consensus to do so at a session of the Forum prior to 2024;

XIII.Follow-up to the eleventh session of the Forum

Decides that the Forum should consider proposals on the following matters:

Replacement of the reference to the Millennium Development Goals in paragraph 1 (b) of the non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests with an appropriate reference to the sustainable development goals and targets that will be considered by the United Nations summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda, to be held in September 2015;

The strategic plan for the period 2017–2030 and the quadrennial programme of work for the period 2017–2020, consistent with section XI of the present resolution;

Invites Member States and relevant stakeholders to provide their views and proposals on the matters referred to in paragraph 44 of the present resolution as inputs to deliberations;

Decides to establish a working group of the Forum with a time-bound mandate, for a period of up to two years in 2016 and 2017, to develop proposals on the matters referred to in paragraph 44 of the present resolution for consideration by the Forum at its special session referred to in paragraph 50 of the present resolution. The working group should:

Operate in accordance with the working modalities of the Forum, as referred to in paragraph 4 of the present resolution;

Elect two Co-Chairs who serve as ex officio members of the Bureau for the special session of the Forum referred in paragraph 50 of the present resolution;

Also decides that the working group of the Forum shall be convened in one session by 30 March 2017 for up to a total of five working days to develop the proposals referred to in paragraph 44 of the present resolution;

Further decides to establish an open-ended intergovernmental ad hoc expert group to conduct up to two meetings in 2016, subject to the availability of extrabudgetary resources, to develop proposals on the matters referred to above for consideration by the working group;

Requests the Co-Chairs of the working group, under the guidance of the Bureau of the special session of the Forum, to also conduct informal consultations as needed, to facilitate a successful outcome for the working group;

Decides to hold a special session in a half-day meeting immediately upon the adjournment of the session of the working group, to consider the proposals of the working group consistent with paragraph 44 of the present resolution;

Requests the Forum to hold its next session in 2017;

XIV.Resources for the implementation of the present resolution

Recognizes that the responsibilities of the secretariat of the Forum have changed considerably in their scope and complexity over the years, including in relation to servicing Forum processes and providing substantive and technical support to developing countries;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to provide, in the most efficient and cost-effective manner, all appropriate support to the secretariat of the Forum;

Urges donor Governments and organizations, including financial institutions, and others in a position to do so, to provide voluntary contributions to the Forum Trust Fund;

Calls upon donor countries and international organizations, including financial institutions, and others in a position to do so, to provide financial support to the Forum Trust Fund in order to support the participation of developing countries, according priority to least developed countries, African States, small island developing States and countries with economies in transition, in accordance with paragraph 40 of the resolution contained in the report of the Forum on its ninth session,Error: Reference source not found in the open-ended intergovernmental ad hoc expert group, the working group of the Forum and the sessions of the Forum;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Forum at its session in 2018 on the implementation of the present resolution.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

I.International arrangement on forests beyond 2015

II.United Nations Forum on Forests beyond 2015

III.Non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests beyond 2015

IV.Catalysing financing for implementation

V.Monitoring, assessment and reporting

VI.Secretariat of the Forum

VII.Collaborative Partnership on Forests

VIII.Regional and subregional involvement

IX.Involvement of major groups and other stakeholders

X.International arrangement on forests and the post-2015 development agenda

XI.Strategic plan

XII.Review of the international arrangement on forests

XIII.Follow-up to the eleventh session of the Forum

XIV.Resources for the implementation of the present resolution

Table of contents

Who cites this mandate in the budget?