In offering to house the Secretariat of the proposed UN Forest Forum at FAO, Mr. Harcharik urged the new body to pay greater attention to implementing the proposals for action that have already been developed.
Implementation requires commitment.
Sadly, we live in a time when the gap between the rich and the poor is widening, not shrinking, when the level of overseas development assistance is decreasing not increasing, and when the financial resources made available to international organizations is declining, not growing. Mr. Harcharik called for the new Forest Forum to put greater emphasis on mobilizing the financial resources needed to implement the proposals for action already developed from all sources including governments, banks, foundations and the private sector. There would be several advantages to having the Secretariat of the proposed Forest Forum at FAO, according to Mr. Harcharik, including better coordination between the Forum and FAO, which is the lead-implementing agency on forests in the UN system. The arrangement would also provide the Secretariat with physical proximity to and staff interchange with a critical mass of forestry expertise, an ongoing forestry program and a source of global information and data on forests, as well as with staff with technical competence in important related disciplines. FAO is also home to technical experts on water and soil resources, desertification, climate change, biological diversity, genetic resources, animal husbandry, rural development and gender and social issues.