Former President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo was on Monday elected as the Chairman of FAO’s 22nd Session of the Committee on Forestry (COFO) for the period 2014-2016. COFO is one of FAO’s governing bodies with over 130 member countries and which deliberates on global forestry issues. This 22nd Session of COFO is being convened in Rome, Italy from 23-27 June 2014 and among the critical issues for discussions include the report on the State of the World’s Forest 2014; Payment for ecosystem services and forest financing; Forests and the Sustainable Development Goals and REDD+ and the UN Climate Summit 2014.
In his remarks upon taking up the Chair, Dr. Jagdeo emphasized the need to advance the global forests agenda in light of the role forests play as an important mitigation option for addressing climate change. Dr. Jagdeo pointed to the need for an enabling policy environment at the national level and access to and scaling up financing as two priority areas while underlining the important role of COFO and the FAO in pushing for a globally supportive environment for action on forests.
While in Rome, Dr. Jagdeo also met with FAO Director General Mr. Jose Graziano Da Silva. Among issues discussed included expanding FAO’s work in the Caribbean and for the organization to play a greater role on the issue of forests and climate change.
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