Country - Led Initiative
in support of the United Nations Forum on Forests 

“Multi Year Programme of Work of United Nations Forum on Forests:
Charting the Way Forward to 2015” 

International Expert Meeting
Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia
13-16 February 2007  

The objective of the meeting is to contribute to the work and success of UNFF-7 in particular to explore, elaborate and develop broader understanding of the concept and elements of the new multi-year program of work (MYPOW) of UNFF with a view to help facilitate the discussion for consideration and adoption at UNFF-7. 

Taking into consideration the need to focus on the practicalities of the MYPOW, the discussion on the future MYPOW should take into consideration recent ECOSOC decisions on forests as well as developments within and outside the UNFF setting; explore inter-sessional issues, monitoring, assessment and reporting, as well as the regional dimension; as well as explore its relationship with the non-legally binding instrument on forests that was deliberated at the Ad-hoc Expert Group Meeting on a non-legally binding instrument on forests held in New York from 11-15 December 2006. 

Against this backdrop, the Steering Committee of the CLI has discussed issues to be considered by each working groups as follows:  

• Working Group 1 on themes of UNFF biennial meetings:

  • What issues are emerging in the forest arena?

  •  Could possible “flagship” themes be included in the MYPOW of United Nations Forum on Forests for its biennial global meetings?

  • How could the Forum create crucial contributions to the forest debate while at the same time avoid duplication with other processes?

  • How are the global objectives on forests going to be addressed in the MYPOW?

• Working Group 2 on modalities:

  • Which working modalities for future UNFF sessions are considered effective taking into account the lessons learned?

  • What are the cross-cutting themes and how could they be incorporated effectively? How could stakeholder contributions be organized more effectively?

  • How could the MYPOW facilitate the implementation of the non-legally binding instrument?

  • How should the reporting requirements be addressed both by the UNFF Secretariat and by member states?

  • How will the implementation of MYPOW be monitored and reviewed?

• Working Group 3 on regional and sub-regional dimensions:

  • How should the UNFF address ongoing regional processes?

  • What is UNFF’s expectation from the regions?

  • What mechanism could be used to receive and consider inputs from the regions? What kind of mechanism would facilitate regional processes feeding into global meetings?

How to organize the interface of regional processes and the UNFF sessions effectively (i.e. what is the role of regions at UNFF sessions?)