Background

Growing Forest Partnerships (GFP) is about creating and strengthening partnerships for the benefit of those dependent on forests.

The partnerships fostered by GFP aim to link international and local perspectives by sharing the stories and experiences from the ground with international fora and by fostering links between a diverse set of sectors and constituencies that have not frequently worked together in the past.

Since the initiative began in 2009, GFP efforts have concentrated on creating the conditions in which to forge these new alliances and on establishing in-country multi-stakeholder platforms. These platforms provide an opportunity to craft a shared vision for working towards the sustainable management of natural resources for the benefit of those depending on them.

Each partnership process has developed in a slightly different way, according to each individual country’s particular context. This makes it imperative for GFP to capture the richness of this diversity by creating opportunities for: exchanging, sharing learning and capitalising on the experiences accumulated so far.

One of the ways that lessons have been shared is through the creation of a programme of exchanges amongst GFP countries and with countries that could benefit from GFP lessons learned. A set of criteria has been developed for these exchanges and so far exchanges have been carried out between:

• Guatemala/Peru (November 2010)
• Burkina Faso/Liberia/Ghana (December 2010)
• Nepal/Laos (March 2011)

The aim of documenting and disseminating lessons learned is to capture the essence, the nature of GFP, and to be able to show how GFP is growing and leading to important changes at country and international levels and that this model can be applied and used in a number of other initiatives and contexts.