The UN-REDD Programme’s Policy Board agreed in an inter-sessional decision in October to welcome Gabon and Guyana as partners of the Programme and official observers to the UN-REDD Programme Policy Board. These two countries join the Programme’s nine pilot countries and 18 other partner countries across Asia and the Pacific, Africa and Latin America (see map and fact box below).

While current UN-REDD Programme funding is programmed for nine pilot countries, partner countries can take advantage of many other benefits of the UN-REDD Programme, such as networking, and knowledge sharing, which is facilitated by the UN-REDD Programme’s online community of practice through its dedicated workspace.

*New UN-REDD partner countries as of October 2010

Partner countries can also participate in global and regional workshops and have official observer status at UN-REDD Policy Board meetings, the next one is scheduled for 4-5 November 2010 in Washington, D.C. The UN-REDD Programme continues to pursue several funding options, enabling the Programme to expand the nature of its support on REDD+ to partner countries in the future.  In the meantime, the Programme is very keen to support the exchange of experiences among countries, and engage with partner countries on REDD+ readiness.