August 2014: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has released a report highlighting good practices on the collection of forest governance data. Titled ‘Assessing Forest Governance: A Practical Guide to Data Collection, Analysis and Use,’ the report addresses issues such as formal laws and policies, customary uses, and land tenure.

Overall, the report identifies a number of requirements for effective forest governance assessments including: the need for good planning, transparency and stakeholder engagement, and technically sound data collection methods. The publication also stresses the importance of disseminating the results from assessments and learning from experiences in order to facilitate adaptive management.

In order to demonstrate good practices, the report includes case studies from Ecuador, Indonesia, Liberia, Tanzania and Uganda. Furthermore, to assist with data collection, it features details on creating budgets, developing work plans and drafting indicators. Finally, the report presents examples of methods, tools and guidelines.

The report is released through the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (UN-REDD) and the World Bank Program on Forests (PROFOR). [UN-REDD Press Release] [Publication: Assessing Forest Governance: A Practical Guide to Data Collection, Analysis and Use]