Forests for People, Climate and Nature: Scaling Social Forestry

Direct target groups:

• Forest-dependent communities in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Zambia and Kenya.

• Women, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalized groups within these communities.

Indirect target groups:

• National and local institutions involved in forest management and governance.

• Civil society organizations and community-based organizations.

• Policymakers and government agencies at national and regional level.

• Stakeholders benefiting from cross-regional knowledge exchange and capacity-building.

Southeast Asia and Africa: Local communities and Indigenous Peoples in selected Southeast Asian and African countries effectively implement community-based forest management and nature-based solutions practices, resulting in enhanced climate resilience and equitable livelihoods.

Policy and market uptake: Policy, financing and market frameworks for social forestry are strengthened to improve access to finance and markets for community-based forest enterprises and to enable scaling biodiversity, climate and livelihood impacts.

Principaux résultats attendus:  

Southeast Asia and Africa:

• Functional social forestry monitoring systems and tools established for data collection and reporting on climate and biodiversity impacts.

• Operational pipelines and support mechanisms for social forestry enterprises developed to facilitate access to finance and markets.

Southeast Asia:

• ASEAN social forestry and nature-based solutions guidelines and toolkits validated and applied through national implementation processes.

Africa:

• Regional cooperation and learning mechanisms operationalized through COMESA3/AFF4 for social forestry knowledge exchange and coordination.

Policy and Market uptake:

• Policy and investment briefs, guidance products and communication materials produced to translate social forestry evidence into decision-relevant formats.

• Structured engagement platforms established linking social forestry enterprise pipelines with investors and buyers (climate funds, corporates).

Principaux résultats antérieurs:  

Southeast Asia:

• National mitigation assessments, integration of social forestry into the National Determined Contribuions and development of monitoring frameworks in Cambodia, Indonesia, and Laos.

• Built capacities for social forestry monitoring and mitigation assessments.

• Promoted responsible private investment in social forestry and supported 13 Social Forestry Enterprises with business plans, covering approximately 2,800 ha and involving more than 1,500 community members.

• Developed ASEAN1 Guidelines and Toolkit on NbS and Ecosystem-based Approaches in the forestry sector, including social forestry.

Africa:

• Strengthened enabling frameworks, regional collaboration, and capacity systems for social forestry.

• Built capacities for social forestry management, climate mitigation, and integration into REDD+2 and climate processes in 13 countries.

• Supported policy dialogue, capacity development, regional knowledge exchange across 13 countries.

• More than 20 million hectares are under some form of social forestry management accros Africa.

Swiss contributions to global funds: Green Climate Fund (GCF), Global Environment Facility (GEF), BioCarbon Fund ISFL, Forest Carbon Partnership Facility

Project CASFor Cambodia (Community Action for Sustainable Forests)

Strategic partnership with RECOFTC, the Center for People and Forests in Bangkok