Forests are important for sustainable development—forest conservation is written into the SDGs—but how are multilateral development banks doing at incorporating forests and forest peoples into their development work? To answer this question, BIC has been looking at how the World Bank, arguably the MDB leader on forest conservation and sustainable forest management, is fulfilling its April 2016 Forest Action Plan (FAP), which (rhetorically at least) commits the Bank to integrating forests throughout its portfolio.
One tool for ensuring that forests are integrated—that the Bank’s projects are “forest-smart”—is the preparation of Country Forest Notes (CFNs). The Bank committed in the Climate Change Action Plan (also April 2016) to prepare 20 of them. These Notes are supposed to inform the Bank’s overall analysis of a country’s development needs (in its Systematic Country Diagnostic) and its agreement with the country on its program (WB Country Partnership Framework). It’s critical that these Notes address issues beyond the forest sector itself because forest sector finance accounts for only about 2% of the Bank’s commitments ($1.7 billion of $89 billion total, FYs 2017 +18).
How is the Bank doing? So far, it has made public just four CFNs. BIC has analyzed these. You can read our first three analyses here—and draw your own conclusions.
Mozambique Country Forest Note Analysis