Please download the final communiqué

 
From 27 to 28 March 2014, the Panoramique –celexon hotel in Bujumbura served as a meeting place for representatives of development partners, Parliament, various Ministries, civil society actors, the private sector, religious denominations, indigenous peoples, etc., who came to take part in the " Readiness Plan Proposal " (RPP) validation workshop. There was excitement in the air as participants looked forward to seeing the "end of the white tunnel" i.e. Burundi’s RPP development process. One could feel the ambient joy transpiring through the speeches delivered by the Minister of Forestry and Environment and the FAO Representative in the presence of the 60 participants.  The statements, on the one hand conveyed the  Burundian Government’s gratitude to its partners for their efforts to provide Burundi with such a technical document, thereby equipping her to develop a national forest monitoring and MRV system in accordance with Decision 1/CP.16 , paragraph 70 ( c ) of the UNFCCC. On the other hand, they expressed the FAO’s satisfaction and pride in having contributed in elaborating such a document as part of the project.

 
Building on the momentum, the organizers sought to first enhance the participants' understanding of the process through presentations on:

 
- The concepts of climate change and REDD +;

- Information sharing and initial dialogue with key stakeholder groups and the consultation and participation process;

- National REDD + preparedness management systems and the implementation framework;

- Assessment of land use, causes of land use changes, forest law, policy and governance, policy options;

- Social and environmental impacts of the REDD +preparation process and its implementation;
- The implementation methodology and the stakes of REDD + and MRV;

- The development of the reference emission level;

- The national MRV system, monitoring of REDD + activities and information on safeguards and co-benefits in Burundi;

- The monitoring and evaluation system and an executive summary of the contents of the BURUNDI R -PP

The presentations fuelled subsequent discussions between the participants and afforded them a firmer grasp of the RPP’s contents and further enabled them to come up with recommendations for improvements to the content of the document. Their comments focused mainly on the awareness and information mechanism, engagement of institutions and ways of collaborating with the latter in the implementation process and changes to the form of the document.

 
Following these recommendations, the participants’ facial expressions signaled their approval of the RPP, as expressed in the final communiqué drafted for this purpose, which they unanimously endorsed. The communiqué can be consulted below:

RPP-Burundi-communiqué final validation RPP MR 140331-1.pdf (659.2 Ko)