The first global workshop, which took place 8-9 February in Geneva, focused on the UN-REDD Programme's Social and Environmental Principles and Criteria (SEPC) and the associated Benefits and Risks Tool (BeRT). The second one-day workshop, on 10 February, reviewed the draft UN-REDD Programme Guidelines on Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) on 10 February, and was followed by a one day technical experts’ working group on 11 February.

Participants to the recent SEPC and FPIC workshops in Geneva included representatives from UN-REDD Programme donor and partner countries, as well as national and international Indigenous Peoples' and civil society organizations.

Both of these workshops were the culmination of a public review process on the SEPC, BeRT and draft Guidelines on FPIC, which took place between October 2011 and January 2012. The workshops allowed the UN-REDD Programme to present and review the feedback received and to discuss proposed revisions to these guidance tools with key stakeholders, including representatives from partner and donor country governments, national and international Indigenous Peoples’ and civil society organizations, the Independent Advisory Group on Forests, Rights and Climate Change, and UN agencies. Other participants included resource and technical experts.

SEPC Workshop
Workshop participants discussed how the SEPC could form a guiding framework for the UN-REDD Programme’s activities on social and environmental issues. They also expressed support for the use of the SEPC to: (1) better support countries’ approaches to safeguards; and (2) address country needs in the different phases of the UN-REDD National Programme cycle. Further development of the BeRT is required to support the application of the SEPC for these different purposes. As well as calling for this further development of the BeRT, participants encouraged the Programme to seek the Policy Board's endorsement of a version of the SEPC that takes into account the comments from the latest round of consultations.

Moving forward, the SEPC will be revised and further uses and tools for application will be explored, as well as further synergies with internal processes and external initiatives. A SEPC workshop final report will be made available on un-redd.org once completed. In the meantime, all related documents, including agenda, participants list, draft SEPC and BeRT and presentations, may already be found here.

FPIC workshop
The FPIC workshop built on a series of regional consultations with over 150 Indigenous Peoples’ and civil society representatives carried out in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean between June 2010 and January 2011. The outputs from these workshops were used to develop the UN-REDD Programme's draft Guidelines on FPIC. These were then open to a public review process from 1 December 2011 to 20 January 2011 which generated comments from a range of Indigenous Peoples’, civil society and academic organizations, as well as governments and other UN agencies.
This workshop provided the opportunity to review and address major issues emerging from the public review process, such as who has a right to FPIC; which activities require FPIC; and how the process to uphold the right to FPIC should be carried out.

For the FPIC session on 10 February, the core group of stakeholders that attended the SEPC workshop were joined by 10 experts on FPIC from various Indigenous Peoples’, civil society and academic organizations. There was an emphasis on understanding country experiences, perspectives and needs in applying the Guidelines on FPIC to national actions under the UN-REDD Programme. The workshop utilized smaller breakout groups tasked with reviewing the major issues listed above. These allowed for focused group discussion and recommendations that were presented back to the wider group.

The technical experts working group held on 11 February brought together a smaller core group of experts to review the outputs from the broader session the day before, to tackle any outstanding concerns, and to make further recommendations on how to resolve specific issues. The recommendations and discussions from both days will be synthesized and presented in a forthcoming final workshop report, which will be made available on un-redd.org once completed.

Documents relating to both the SEPC and FPIC workshops can be accessed here. Available materials include background documents, agendas and participants lists, formal presentations and copies of breakout group presentations.