Mountain and Watershed Management
In close collaboration with other UN agencies, governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and research institutions, and across its technical departments, FAO supports countries through its normative work, a strong field program and support to international processes.
Photo © Paolo Ceci/FAO
FAO carries out constant conceptual work with its 189 member countries. Taking advantage of the wealth of specific experience and expertise of government agencies, universities, research institutions, etc, FAO brings on board current issues which require particular attention, analyzes and systemizes them, provides state-of-the-art reports which offer complete overviews of the issues at stake, and contributes to the advancement of concepts and approaches. As a retro-feedback mechanism, findings and recommendations resulting from these normative processes are tested and validated at the field level, thus allowing a continuous improvement.
The Watershed Management and Mountains Programme produces capacity - building and technical material that supports the implementation of project activities at the local level and ensures the dissemination of relevant expertise worldwide. Publications issued under the lead of the Watershed Management and Mountains Programme also aim at raising awareness among policy - and decision - makers who are responsible for finding a balance between socio-economic development and environmental conservation thrusts.
A full inventory of publications can be downloaded under the section Normative work and publications.
In the almost twenty years since Rio 1992, FAO has implemented 53 field projects, related to watershed management, in 41 countries (Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Near East and Europe). In general, field projects combine activities for the sustainable management of natural resources (e.g. afforestation, terracing) with activities to improve the livelihood situation of the local population and work at the political level, e.g. in the field of legislation.
A full inventory of Project implemented/being implemented with the support of the Watershed Management and Mountains programme that include(d) a significant watershed management and/or sustainable mountain development component is currently under way can be found under the section Field projects.
FAO provides support to international processes related to intersectoral topics that need to be addressed by the international community. One example is the topic of ‘‘forests and water,’’ which is obviously very important for sustainable mountain development and which got considerable attention in the past few years. FAO, together with key-partner, organized a number of events on this topic and took the initiative of synthesizing the main outcomes and recommendations resulting from this process, in order to develop a comprehensive and practical international forests and water agenda to address future course of action.