BOGOTA, Colombia, 9 May 2019. At the Tropical Forest Alliance Annual Meeting in Bogota, Colombia, UNDP’s new flagship initiative, From Commitment to Action (FC2A), is making its own contribution to a Forest Positive Future by holding a National Dialogue, jointly with Alianza Cacao, Bosques y Paz.
FC2A supports countries accelerating a reduction in deforestation from agricultural commodities in key forest eco-regions of the world, and is supporting Amazon-focused work in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador.
At the centre of the project is a process that aims to harmonize agendas and create a joint understanding of actions planned, and further actions needed, to reduce deforestation. The objective is to help create the enabling environment needed to fulfil the commitments made by governments and companies to reduce deforestation from commodities. FC2A’s National Dialogues, such as the one held as part of the TFA Annual Meeting, will complement the action planning in the National Assembly of TFA Colombia on Thursday May 9. There are many other initiatives also focusing on achieving zero deforestation, such as FOLU, AFI, TFA, and IDH, and FC2A plays a key role in supporting harmonization between them.
“We’ve had a great response from our TFA National Dialogue, and last week we held a similar conversation leading up to the Governor’s Climate and Forest Task Force Annual Meeting in Caqueta, Colombia. Combined with the Good Growth Partnership’s Good Growth Conference in Peru next week, we are gathering momentum. It’s impressive that the region is hosting three significant events in three weeks, proving that reducing deforestation is a priority for these countries. Stakeholders are telling us that bringing everybody together in a true Multi-stakeholder Dialogue to harmonize actions for more effective impacts is very valuable, especially with UNDP’s skill in working with the existing context in each country,” said Christina Archer from UNDP.
One example of FC2A’s impact came at a recent event attended by many of the key buyers of meat and milk from the Colombian Amazon. They deepened their understanding of their role and confirmed their intention to continue collaboration to identify the concrete actions needed to move from commitment to action by the private sector working alongside private actors. Achieving economic growth without deforestation means a new approach to growth and a new appreciation of the value of forests, in fact a reinvention of the conventional economic model is at the heart of these commitments.
In Colombia FC2A’s work has built on existing Zero Deforestation National Agreements, and the National Strategy to Control Deforestation. Though FC2A, a number of national events have collaboratively come together to:
- Take stock of existing commitments by government and the private sector (domestic and international) to reduce deforestation from commodity production in the country
- Identify policies, initiatives and actions by public or private sectors, that are enabling continued expansion of commodity “footprints” into primary and secondary rainforest and highlight any gaps and steps needed to achieve zero deforestation
- Build on the initiatives already planned, and budgeted for, to meet the commitments, and highlight gaps where additional policies, actions and spending are required
The FC2A dialogue within the framework of the TFA Global event proposes an analysis and action plan to ensure that investments in promoting agriculture and livestock productivity in forest regions, have some minimum criteria that will ensure they do not end up financing deforestation as an unintended consequence.