It gives me great pleasure to introduce this annual report, showcasing how RECOFTC has driven positive change in 2022–2023. The stories it shares exemplify just some of ways that our work has had impact – from improving policies, boosting livelihoods and shifting attitudes to strengthening civil society organizations, amplifying citizen voices and harnessing the power of networks.
RECOFTC’s dedicated staff, partners and the many people we work with in communities, governments, academic institutions, nongovernmental organizations and businesses have made this possible.
The period that this report covers was the final year of implementation of RECOFTC’s Strategic Plan for 2018–2023, and I am happy to report that we largely achieved all the strategy’s objectives and targets.
Key to this has been RECOFTC’s adoption of the landscape approach in interventions across our seven focal countries. This has enabled us to work across a variety of land uses and build strategic partnerships among stakeholders in our target forest landscapes. This approach has strengthened governance, promoted forest landscape restoration, and generated investments and business opportunities that are crucial to sustainability.
Over the past year, we provided technical advice, and support with market linkages, to 47 individually owned and 106 group-owned community-based enterprises selling products and services from forest landscapes. Over the course of our five-year strategic plan period, we facilitated 223 business agreements and partnerships between communities and private companies, such as buyers of sustainably harvested timber, bamboo and other products from community forests.
A central pillar of our work has been capacity building through workshops, study tours, online courses, mentoring and other approaches. Over the past five years, we built the capacity of more than 20,000 people in areas including collaborative forest landscape management, participatory forest governance, community-based enterprise development, and gender equality and social inclusion.
Spacing
These interventions were directly associated with more than half a million hectares of community forest in our seven focal countries. We also contributed to the adoption by national and subnational governments of nearly 60 policies and practices that improve forest governance. And at the regional level, we supported implementation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Strategic Plan of Action on Forestry 2021–2025.
The period covered by this report also marked the transition into RECOFTC’s next five-year strategic phase. We collaborated with staff, Board members and key partners over a 10-month period to develop our Strategic Plan for 2023–2028, through a participatory process that concluded in March 2023 when our Board of Trustees approved the plan.
Work to implement the new plan has begun. It is made ever more urgent by the accelerating climate crisis as well as other social, economic, environmental and political stressors. But even as challenges mount, we see many reasons for hope.
Key among these is the growing recognition that forest landscapes that are well managed by local communities have key roles to play in addressing climate change and conserving biodiversity. This is creating new opportunities to support communities to play these roles by exercising their rights to manage and benefit directly from these local forests. This aligns with the global movement to empower Indigenous People and local communities to be more directly involved and benefit directly from climate and conservation financing mechanisms.
Looking ahead, we will continue to innovate and adapt, leveraging our collective expertise. Together, we can build a more sustainable and equitable future, where communities prosper in thriving forest landscapes. Thank you for your continued support and collaboration as we work towards these goals.