The Joint UNECE/FAO Forestry and Timber Section has gathered significant amounts of information over the past several years that were not easily, if at all, available online due to a lack of relevant tools and resources. To address this issue, the Joint UNECE/FAO Forestry and Timber Section has been developing, with support from the government of Switzerland, a new tool designed to display a small selection of available data. The new data and knowledge platform - is expected to improve the management and accessibility of the collected information and user-friendliness and design of dissemination tools.

The development of the platform has been done in communication with the providers of data presented and users of this tool. This meeting was organized as part of this process, with the involvement of national and international experts on the issue – members of the UNECE/FAO Teams of Specialists on Forests Products Statistics and on Monitoring Sustainable Forest Management. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce the prototype of the platform to participants, test its functionalities and collect users’ feedback, to develop the final version of this tool.

The platform (INForest) is now available at https://forest-data.unece.org/. Please contact Roman Michalak at [email protected] or Alex McCusker at [email protected] for more information about the event, the process, and the tool.