User:Yeongjoo

Brief Overview
The agreement is a outcome of the Republic of Korea's initiative for strengthen and facilitation cooperation among Asian countries on forest and forestry sector at the Commemorative ASEAN-ROK Summit held in Jeju, Korea, on 1st June 2009. Mr. Lee Myung-bak, the president of Korea, proposed the establishment of Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO) and the Leaders of ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) appreciated the ROK's proposal. After 5 times of the Ad-hoc Working Group on the Establishment of AFoCO under ASOF (ASEAN Senior Officials on Forestry), the text of the Agreement finalized and signed at the 14th ASEAN-ROK Summit on 18th November 2011 at Bali, Indonesia.

Chronological History

 * 1) ASEAN-Republic of Korea Commemorative Summit. Jeju Island, Republic of Korea, 2 June 2009
 * 2) 12th Meeting of the ASEAN Senior Officials on Forestry (ASOF), Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar, 25-27 June 2009
 * 3) 1st Meeting of AWG-AFoCO. Jakarta, Indonesia, 24-26 August 2009
 * 4) 12th ASEAN-ROK Summit. Cha-am Hua Hin, Thailand, 24 October 2009
 * 5) 2nd Meeting of AWG-AFoCO. Jeju Island, Korea, 15-16 March 2010
 * 6) 13th Meeting of the ASEAN Senior Officials on Forestry (ASOF), Makati City, Philippines, 29-31 July 2010
 * 7) ASEAN Post Ministerial Conferences (PMCs) +1 Session, Hanoi, 22 July 2010
 * 8) 3rd Meeting of AWG-AFoCO, Bali, Indonesia, 9-11 March 2011
 * 9) 4th Meeting of AWG-AFoCO, Chiang Rai, Thailand, 26-28 April 2011
 * 10) 5th Meeting of AWG-AFoCO, Luang Prabang, Laos, 31 May - 1 June 2011
 * 11) 14th Meeting of the ASEAN Senior Officials on Forestry (ASOF), Chaing Mai, Thailand, 7-8 July 2011
 * 12) ASEAN Post Ministerial Conferences (PMCs) +1 Session, Bali, Indonesia, 21-22 July 2011
 * 13) Special Senior Officials Meeting on the 32nd Meeting of the ASEAN Ministers on Agriculture and Forestry, Siem Reap, Cambodia, 8-9 August 2011
 * 14) 14th ASEAN-ROK Summit, Bali, Indonesia, 18 November 2011
 * 15) High Level Workshop on ASEAN-ROK Forest Cooperation, Hanoi, Viet Nam, 21-22 February 2012
 * 16) Special Technical Workshop on ASEAN-ROK Forest Cooperation, Sihanouk Ville, 25-27 April 2012
 * 17) 15th Meeting of the ASEAN Senior Officials on Forestry (ASOF), Hanoi, Viet Nam, 28-29 June 2012
 * 18) 2nd Special Technical Workshop on ASEAN-ROK Forest Cooperation, 9-10 August 2012 (venue to be decided)
 * 19) Special ASEAN-ROK Ministerial Meeting on Forestry, Seoul, Korea, 30 August 2012 (scheduled)

Signatory countries
The list of 11 signatory countries are as below (alphabetical order for ASEAN).


 * Brunei Darussalam
 * The Kingdom of Cambodia
 * The Republic of Indonesia
 * The Lao People's Democratic Republic
 * Malaysia


 * The Republic of the Union of Myanmar
 * The Republic of the Philippines
 * The Republic of Singapore
 * The Kingdom of Thailand
 * The Socialist Republic of Viet Nam and
 * The Republic of Korea

Funding
Based on the Agreement a Governing Council and a Secretariat shall be established once it is entered into force. The Secretariat shall be established in ROK, the host country. therefore the operating cost for implementation of the Agreement shall be funded based on the ratio of one-to-nine from the ASEAN Member States (AMSs) as a whole and ROK, respectively.

Areas of the cooperation
Areas of cooperation under this Agreement shall include following:


 * a) promoting sustainable forest management
 * b) addressing deforestation and forest degradation in the framework of the adaptation and mitigation of climate change, combating desertification, restoring and rehabilitating degraded land, promoting community-based forestry activities, and preventing forest disasters
 * c) strengthening capacity-building, public awareness, and research and development in forestry sector, including through technology transfers and technical information sharing in the forestry sector, including, inter alia, wood based and forest products
 * d) enhancing forest carbon stocks and supporting initiatives, including mitigation and adaptation of the impacts of climate change in forestry
 * e) undertaking dialogues towards the establishment of AFoCO
 * f) enhancing and mobilizing existing and future financial resources in the forestry sector
 * g) any other areas of forestry cooperation to be mutually agreed from time to time by the Parties.

Establishment of AFoCO (Asian Forest Cooperation Organization)
Although this Agreement has been signed between the Governments of ASEAN and ROK, one of the objectives of the Agreement has to provide a platform for dialogue between the ASEAN Member States the ROK towards the establishment of AFoCO therefore the establishment of AFoCO shall commence soon after entry into force of the Agreement in anticipation of finalizing a separate arrangement for AFoCO within two years from the entry into force of this Agreement. In this regards the Parties call current Agreement as AFoCo and the next one as AFoCO.

Current cooperation status
For the AFoCO, ROK supported many pilot projects and cooperation projects to AMSs since 2009. So far 4 pilot projects and 9 cooperation projects were implemented and some are still undergoing.