Communiqué, China-UN-REDD scoping meeting
On 13 Oct 2010, the National Development and Reform Commission of China (NDRC) and the UN-REDD Programme co-hosted a scoping meeting in Beijing to explore potential avenues for cooperation on supporting the UN-REDD program in developing countries. The participants include senior officials and experts from NDRC, UN-REDD Programme, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the State Forest Administration (SFA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The UNEP International Ecosystem Management Partnership (IEMP), with the support of the UNEP Beijing Office, organized the meeting and facilitated the discussions.
Mr. Su Wei, Director General on Climate Change from NDRC and China’s focal point to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) welcomed all participants. He is very supportive to the prospects of cooperation between China and the UN-REDD Programme. While expecting the positive outcomes on the REDD+ negotiation in Cancun, Mexico, he expressed China's willingness to collaborate with the UN to provide technical and capacity building support to Pilot Countries of UN-REDD Programme, especially those in Africa and Asia.
Mr. Yemi Katerere from the UN-REDD Secretariat and Mr. Ravi Prabhu from UNEP made presentations on UN-REDD program and its progress, which provided overall information on UN-REDD and the development of REDD+ strategies through to their implementation, REDD+ insights and chances of success. The subsequent presentations from SFA and CAS demonstrated China’s experiences, good practices and technical capacity in the domain of ecosystem research and management, in particular, forest inventories, monitoring, research and capacity building. All speakers expressed their strong interest to promote REDD+ readiness in developing countries.
The presentations were followed by a brainstorming to identify potential areas and mechanisms of cooperation between the UN-REDD Programme and its Chinese counterparts. Examples of potential areas of cooperation include: technical and capacity needs analysis for developing countries to be ready for implementation of REDD+ activities, and capacity building for monitoring forest ecosystems, carbon and GHG fluxes and land use change in other developing countries. Examples of cooperation mechanisms were also explored such as organization of a workshop/dialogue between China and the UN-REDD pilot countries to identify demands and supplies as well as appropriate working mechanisms, and exploration of opportunities from and take advantages of existing bilateral cooperation frameworks such as Sino-Africa forum which has successfully worked on CDM cooperation as well as organization of project-based training and capacity building.
The meeting demonstrated strong willingness of both UN-REDD Programme and China to work together to support readiness of developing countries for REDD and REDD+ activities. There are clear evidence that China could provide technical and capacity building support to UN-REDD pilot countries through both the UN and other bilateral mechanisms such as China-Africa Forum and South-South Cooperation. The formal mode of China’s engagement in the UN-REDD Programmes is yet to be decided, pilot projects in 1-2 countries between China and the UN-REDD can start to provide on-the-ground experiences to deepen and broaden the cooperation. The UN-REDD Programme is well positioned as a facilitator to promote this cooperation, and its catalyzing role was well recognized by the meeting.
Mr. Su Wei giving opening remarks at China-UN-REDD scoping meeting