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UN Forum on Forests warns U.N. financial crisis threatens secretariat’s work
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Summary
At the opening of UNFF 20 in New York, leaders and the secretariat said an acute U.N. liquidity crisis and new tasks from the midterm review are outpacing the Forum’s resources and risk limiting its delivery on forest goals, with the secretariat urging more funding and a decision on workload needs.
Ismail Belem, chair of the United Nations Forum on Forests and a forest engineer from Turkey, opened the session on May 5 in New York and warned that “the United Nations is facing a serious financial crisis. This affects all aspect of its work.”
The forum's secretariat said that recent mandates from UNFF 19 added more than 30 tasks without corresponding program funding and that the resulting resource shortfall is jeopardizing the secretariat’s ability to support member states. Juliet Piau, director of the UNFF secretariat, told delegates, “this situation is not sustainable. The current resource insufficiency of the secretariat has put its delivery capacity at great risk.”
Those warnings were delivered as the forum adopted its provisional agenda and set a shortened schedule because of austerity measures the President of the General Assembly transmitted in February. Secretariat officials said UNFF 19’s omnibus resolution and the midterm review expanded the forum’s responsibilities through 2030, but the additional work came “no program budget implication,” leaving the secretariat without dedicated funds for many newly assigned tasks.
The secretariat highlighted several high-priority items that funding shortfalls could affect: support for national reporting and the new online reporting platform, technical assistance and capacity building for developing countries, planning and facilitation of country-led initiatives and side events, and substantive support for the Global Forest Financing Facilitation Network (GFFFN).
Ryo Nakamura of the UNFF secretariat introduced the information note that will serve as the basis for technical discussions and told delegates that an information paper on “workload, needs, and gaps” will be presented later in the session to help delegations consider responses to the resource squeeze. The forum set a timetable that includes a general discussion of the secretariat’s information papers and an evening deadline for circulating a draft chair’s summary of the session.
Delegations from multiple regions urged stronger, predictable financing for forum activities, and several said they would seek to mobilize bilateral and multilateral support. The secretariat urged member states to consider additional voluntary contributions and to follow up on the forthcoming information paper that lays out specific gaps and proposed priorities.
The forum plans to conclude its technical session on Friday, May 9, and the secretariat said delegations will have one additional week after that meeting to submit factual corrections or indicate any major missing elements for inclusion in the chair’s summary.
