From Our Blog: Recently with the ICCF Group

Amazonia is approaching a critical ecological and development juncture. Accelerating deforestation, forest degradation, and increasingly severe fires continue to threaten biodiversity and the livelihoods of more than 48 million people living in Amazonia. While Amazonian countries have adopted important policy commitments and legal frameworks to address these challenges, the principal challenge increasingly lies not in identifying solutions, but in implementing and scaling those that already exist.

Parliamentarians have a critical role to play in closing this implementation gap through legislation, budgeting, oversight, and regional cooperation. Strengthening these functions can help translate existing commitments into coordinated action capable of advancing conservation and sustainable development across the Amazon region.

About the Promoting Legislative Dialogue in the Amazon Initiative

Promoting Legislative Dialogue in the Amazon is a collaboration between the ICCF Group, the Inter-American Development Bank (through its Amazonia Forever Program), and the World Bank (through the GEF-financed Amazon Sustainable Landscapes Program) built around that idea. It builds on work the ICCF Group began in 2022 with the ASL program, which focused initially on Brazil, Colombia, and Peru and was developed closely with the Amazon Parliament (PARLAMAZ). This new phase expanded that work to a broader group of Amazonian countries and a wider set of legislative priorities. Throughout, the ICCF Group provided balanced, well-grounded information to support informed policymaking.

The initiative aimed to give Amazonian parliamentarians solid, comparative information on conservation and sustainable development, and create concrete opportunities for them to talk across borders about shared challenges. The project brought legislators together around three themes that parliamentarians themselves identified as priorities: forest and ecosystem restoration, sustainable bioeconomy, and integrated fire management.

Over the course of 15 months between 2025 and 2026, the collaboration held three regional dialogues. Bogotá, Colombia focused on forest and ecosystem restoration. Brasília, Brazil focused on the bioeconomy. Washington, D.C. focused on integrated fire management. More than 115 people took part across the three events, including parliamentarians, government officials, technical experts, civil society representatives, and development partners from across the region. Each dialogue paired expert briefings with open discussion, giving parliamentarians the chance to connect the evidence to their own national realities and find common ground for regional cooperation.

About the Declarations

Each dialogue produced its own outcome, shaped by what parliamentarians and experts discussed together.

The Bogotá Dialogue

The Bogotá dialogue, held during the V Cumbre de Presidentes Amazónicos in August 2025, resulted in a joint parliamentary declaration on forest and ecosystem restoration, signed by members of congress from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. It affirms their shared commitment to protecting the Amazon and strengthening legislative coordination across the region.

The Brasília Dialogue

The Brasília dialogue, held in October 2025, brought together parliamentarians and congressional representatives from Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, and Suriname alongside government officials and technical experts to focus on the Amazon bioeconomy. It produced a joint declaration calling for national bioeconomy framework laws, harmonized regional standards, blended finance for innovation, and stronger protection of traditional knowledge and benefit-sharing for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

The Washington, D.C. Dialogue

Hon. Socorro Neri, Congress Member, Brazil, and Co-Chair of Caucus Brazil

The Washington, D.C. dialogue, held in October 2025, brought together parliamentarians, technical experts, and regional partners to examine forest fires in the Amazon, drawing on comparative experience from Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. Rather than a declaration, it produced a Parliamentary Roadmap on Integrated Fire Management, a more action-focused set of pathways for follow-up at the national and regional level, including support for national fire management laws, stronger parliamentary oversight, and greater regional cooperation.

Together, these documents reflect the views and priorities of the participating parliamentarians on these themes and opportunities that may arise to shape policies in their respective countries and through regional approaches.