ASIA LOW EMISSION DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES (LEDS) WORK PLAN

serve the role as Secretariat of the ALP, and helped craft its governance framework, vision, and work
plans for calendar year (CY) 2013, CY 2014, and CY 2015. In FY 2014, the USAID LEAD team continued to
strengthen the credibility, reach, and track record of the ALP as a premier regional network for peer
exchange among LEDS policymakers and practitioners and for facilitating collaborations among donors
and development organizations with similar goals. This work was recognized by an external evaluation
of LEDS GP, which concluded that of all the elements of LEDS GP – including the regional platforms,
working groups, and global secretariat, the ALP itself was the most effective.
In FY 2015 and FY 2016, the USAID LEAD team will continue to serve as the Secretariat of ALP and
contribute LEDS-related technical assistance and training to its members, through a robust set of
activities, responsive to member needs. The US-Asia LEDS Program will also continue to facilitate USG
support for addressing members’ needs to better understand how to use and apply policy analysis tools
and methods.
The USAID LEAD program will also continue to work with USFS and the USAID LEAF program to support
the recently launched agriculture, forestry and other land use working group (AFOLU WG) of the LEDS
GP. Participants at the second annual Asia LEDS Forum agreed that the USFS would lead the AFOLU
WG’s launch and initial coordination. USFS, in conjunction with the USAID LEAF program, helped recruit
and form a steering committee, which now includes the USAID LEAD and LEAF programs, USFS, the
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the United
Nations University, and the Global Environment Centre (GEC). GEC now serves as the AFOLU WG
Secretariat. The AFOLU WG is now one of six issue-focused working groups that support the priorities
and initiatives of the LEDS regional platforms. In May 2014, it participated in the Forest Asia Summit in
Jakarta, Indonesia. The following interim Goal Statement for the AFOLU WG was adopted following the
in-person meetings in Manila and Jakarta: “To promote and facilitate information, knowledge sharing,
and adoption of tools and solutions for climate-resilient, low-emission development across the
agriculture, forestry and other land use sectors.” The long-term objectives of the AFOLU WG are to:
Advance the WG so that it is sustainable and can function well;
Communicate among stakeholders in the AFOLU sector including regional-, national-, and subnational
decision makers, practitioners, private sectors and researchers;
Identify tools that could help facilitate design and implementation of LEDS for AFOLU;
Identify solutions that could help facilitate design and implementation of LEDS for AFOLU;
Facilitate and enhance knowledge sharing between stakeholders in the AFOLU sectors in context
of climate-resilient and low-emission development; and
Establish expert linkages.
In response to a request from RDMA, USAID LEAD will also provide support for the RDMA Clean Energy
Expert’s Roundtable meeting in April 2015.
The USAID LEAD program will also continue to serve as the primary coordinator of USG support under
the global US-Thailand EC-LEDS agreement. On May 14, 2013, the USG and the Royal Thai Government
(RTG) agreed to cooperate on efforts to reduce the growth of GHG emissions from various economic
activities and pursue low-carbon, sustainable development. In mid-October 2013, to begin
implementation of this EC-LEDS agreement, USAID LEAD convened a workshop with RTG officials, where
attendees identified priorities for joint EC-LEDS activities in Thailand: improving MRV processes as a
foundation for a national GHG emissions registry system, GHG inventory development, LEDS
implementation, technology for GHG mitigation, collaboration on LEDS-related training programs, and
21 US-Asia LEDS Program Work Plan