Green Recovery and Transition

All countries face a wide range of risks, shocks and crises, which can range from being localized or short-term e.g. disease outbreaks and political tensions to protracted crises such as conflicts and major droughts. The nexus of climate change, disasters and conflict is important, with growing trends of resource insecurity, social polarization, and displacement in various parts of the planet.

The Green Recovery and Transition area of UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC) focuses on the topic of sustainable forestry (SDG target 15.2), to enhance national prevention and recovery capacities for resilient societies.

Addressing deforestation along with protecting and restoring forests is critical to achieving the Paris Agreement and SDG 15. Korea has made significant progress in sustainable forest management and is considered a model “former developing” country for sharing and exchanging lessons on how to overcome tremendous challenges to reforest large areas of land. Based on research and three published SDG Policy Briefs on forestry and external publications, the SDG Partnership for sustainable forestry scales up sustainable forest management and reforestation-related country level implementation, and USPC operates as a hub for linking both developed and developing nations on this important work. SDG partner countries will also include fragile and post-conflict countries where natural resource depletion can reach alarming levels compounded by inclusion challenges and various social and governance dimensions. The sustainable forestry work seen through the lens of Green Recovery and Transition dimension therefore has a holistic approach in synergy with integrated natures of the 2030 Agenda. This work relates to signature solution 3 of UNDP’s Strategic Plan 2022-2025.

Major Achievements

In 2021, USPC implemented the following for the thematic area of Green Recovery and Transition through SDG Partnerships.

• Ghana: Strengthened the Forestry Commission’s capacities in forest fire management through developing training manuals and knowledge products on forest fire management for onsite trainings of firefighters and volunteers throughout the country, based on support from the Korean National Institute of Forest Science.
• Tajikistan: Achieved evidence-based policymaking in the forestry sector through conducting a locally customized Technical Study on Valuation of reforestation in terms of Disaster Risk Reduction.