Based on the intergovernmental agreed guidance by the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF), the UNFF-Global Forest Financing Facilitation Network (GFFFN) should maintain a list of country requests, provide support whenever capacity and resources become available. The response time by the GFFFN varies based on the availability of fanatical resources, sufficient human resources, and the readiness and internal coordination among different national ministries of countries. Given the limitation of human and financial resources, the average response time to provide GFFFN support is normally more than a year. Upon receipt of this country request, the UNFF Secretariat, consistent with the intergovernmentally agreed guidelines, immediately acknowledged the receipt of the request, and informed them officially of the provision of the GFFFN support once the resources and capacity within the Secretariat become available. At the time of receipt of this request, the UNFF-GFFFN was providing support to a large number of country requests received previously. This request, was, thus placed on the waiting list for support when the capacity at the GFFFN become available upon completion of its ongoing country project.

In 2020. the COVID-19 pandemic significantly interrupted the GFFFN activities in support of countries, due to travel restrictions and the challenges in conducting national level stakeholder consultations, workshops, etc. The latter was compounded by the reduced human capacity at the UNFFS to support GFFFN activities in the same year. These have resulted in delay in the completion of the ongoing GFFFN activities and the commencement of new GFFFN support to countries in the waiting list. To address these issues and start provision of support, the UNFF-GFFFN is contacting countries in the waiting list to start the work, especially regarding the analytical and feasibility studies in those countries this year (2021).