Report from FIP Sub-Committee Meeting

On June 24 in Washington DC, the governing body of the multilateral Forest Investment Program (FIP) gathered for its fourth meeting and made a series of decisions, advancing the FIP to its next critical stage of implementation.

Most significantly, the FIP Sub-Committee approved Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mexico as the three newest FIP pilot countries, joining Burkina Faso, Ghana, Indonesia, Lao PDR, and Peru as the final set of eight FIP pilots. Joint programming missions for the pilots will start soon. The Sub-Committee also approved operational guidelines for public and private sector investments, criteria for country investment strategies and projects, and a menu of financing modalities ranging from grants to concessional loans and guarantees.

In addition, to ensure coherence among REDD+ organizations, the Sub-Committee reviewed Enhancing Cooperation and Seeking Coherence between REDD+ Institutions to Support Countries REDD+ Efforts, a joint paper of the FIP, Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), and UN-REDD Programme. The Sub-Committee supported a proposal that the three institutions’ governing bodies hold a joint meeting in Washington, D.C., in early November.

About FIP
The FIP Sub-Committee is made up of six developing and six contributing countries. Observers, selected through a self-selection process, come from civil society, Indigenous Peoples and the private sector. The FCPF and UN-REDD Programme are also observers. The FIP is a targeted program of the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF), one of two Climate Investment Funds (CIF), which are jointly implemented by the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Inter-American Development Bank, and World Bank Group.

The FIP supports developing country efforts to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and promotes sustainable forest management that helps reduce emissions and protect carbon reservoirs. The FIP provides scaled-up financing for public and private investments identified through national REDD readiness or equivalent strategies.