The 2015 Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. Terrestrial carbon sequestration, which mostly takes place in forests, is critical to achieving this goal. To meet this ambitious target, countries have formulated individual climate commitments, referred to as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Land use, and forests in particular, have been identified as a key component of the NDCs expected to provide an estimated 25 percent of emission reductions efforts up to 2030. However, to plan, implement and monitor these reductions, technical support is urgently needed to overcome forest data gaps, while at the same time improving the quality and transparency of forest related data and information. Against this background, the project was designed to strengthen institutional and technical capacities of developing countries through a coordinated process for global and national forest related data collection, analysis and dissemination, supporting countries to meet the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) of the Paris Agreement; focusing on seven pilot countries: Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Guatemala, Honduras, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Thailand and Uganda.