24 June 2014: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the World Bank’s Program on Forests (PROFOR) have released a guide on assessing forest governance. The organizations also convened a discussion to help users best implement the guide, which supports improved governance through the identification of problems and implementation of reform.

The publication, titled ‘Assessing Forest Governance – A practical guide to data collection, analysis and use,’ recognizes that governance is often the greatest challenge facing effective and sustainable forest management. As such, the guide presents good practices for forest governance assessment including: sufficient planning, a transparent approach, stakeholder engagement, sound technical tools, broad dissemination of results, and adaptive planning and self-evaluation.

The guide provides insight into setting objectives, writing an assessment work plan, planning for data collection, collecting data, analyzing information, disseminating results, learning and improvement. The publication also features details on creating budgets and developing indicators, and uses case studies from Ecuador, Indonesia, Liberia, Tanzania and Uganda.

The guide was released on the occasion of the 22nd session of the FAO Committee on Forestry (COFO 22). [PROFOR Press Release] [Publication: Assessing Forest Governance: A Practical Guide to Data Collection, Analysis and Use]