The MGD presents international reporting requirements in a practical way. More than 50 authors from 20 countries have contributed to its development, including 15 authors that worked also on the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories released in June 2019 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The MGD has been downloaded more than 9K times since being made available online on the REDDcompass platform in 2017 and is referenced 14 times in the IPCC 2019 refinement.

The authors of the MGD are currently revising version 2 of the document to incorporate new guidance published in the IPCC 2019 refinement. Moreover, the improvements will reflect the expertise and experiences gained by countries and international partners under GFOI following the implementation of National Forest Monitoring Systems (NFMS).

This work is guided by 14 members of the MGD Advisory Group, one representative from the IPCC Technical Support Unit, one from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat, twelve country experts of which six for REDD+ countries and six for non-REDD+ countries.

Under the guidance of the Advisory Group, the authors agreed on a revised outline in 2019 and have been assigned to work on different sections remotely. This meeting will provide them the opportunity to further develop the new content and consolidate the first draft of MGD 3.0 ready for external review. MGD 3.0 is expected to be released in the second half of 2020.

Updates to the online REDDcompass platform are happening in parallel with the MGD refinement which will lead to improved linkages to methods, resources and tools providing ready access to all GFOI partner NFMS related resources.