The Capacity Development for REDD+ Regional Data collection workshop took place in Berlin, 28 May-8 June. The main aim of the workshop was the assessment and compilation of forest sector activity data for the GHG inventory for 11 countries from Latin American and Africa. This helped identify the significant data gaps still remaining in most countries which will form the basis for further work on their GHG inventories, with support from the CD-REDD II team. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.from FAO attended the 2^nd week on behalf of UN REDD. View the presentations online and read more detailed information here.

The UN-REDD Programme was invited to the workshop to provide technical inputs and expertise, as well as listen and gain a greater understanding about the data collection and training needs of REDD+ countries. Moving forward, the UN-REDD Programme will continue to explore ways in which it can work more closely with the CD-REDD team and other partners to improve consistency and reduce duplication in terms of training and support to countries developing their GHG inventories.

The UN-REDD Programme also identified possible areas of collaboration with Colorado State University in the USA, which has developed software to calculate GHG emissions from Agriculture and Land Use change (ALU) tool. The software collates GHG input data such as forest areas and changes in land uses and does many of the calculations required to process the data to help countries produce a GHG report.  The UN-REDD Programme also made useful contacts at the workshop with the  Eastern and Southern African GHG project and the Southern African Development Community's REDD+ project.  

There were 34 participants from 11 countries in total over the two-week workshop. Three countries in Central America (Dominican Republic, Guyana and Suriname) participated in the first week and then eight countries from Africa (Botswana, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia) for the 2^nd week, three of which—Guyana, Suriname, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia— are partner countries of the UN-REDD Programme. The workshop will be followed up by project team visits to each country over the next few months and a later workshop to help them analyze the results using the ALU GHG software.