24 January 2013: The UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD) published the latest version of its newsletter highlighting new donor commitments, events at the eighteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 18), in-country actions and work on safeguards and multiple benefits.

The newsletter notes that the UN-REDD Programme is now operating with US$169.9 million in funding from Denmark, the European Union, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway and Spain, allowing the Programme to support activities in 46 partner countries.

With regard to in-country action, the newsletter focuses on progress towards REDD+ readiness in Bhutan and Cambodia. The update also reflects on the Phase 1 experiences in Indonesia, which closed its UN-REDD national programme in October 2012 highlighting the development of two strategies, one on REDD+ Strategy and the second on Information, Monitoring and Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV).

Technical work reported on in the newsletter includes an expert meeting to develop a “Practical Guide on Assessing and Monitoring Forest Governance,” with participants from Ecuador, Uganda and Vietnam. The newsletter further reports on the meeting on the theme “REDD+ Beyond Carbon: Safeguards and Multiple Benefits,” which examined REDD+ safeguards, the quantification, valuation and mapping of multiple benefits and ways and means to monitor the impacts of REDD+ on ecosystem services and biodiversity.

Finally, the newsletter announces the appointment of the new head of the UN-REDD Secretariat, Mario Boccucci, who assumed the post on the 21 January. [Publication: UN-REDD Newsletter #35]