Topic: REDD

This working paper presents positive trends and overarching gaps in how countries designing programs to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) are proposing to address governance challenges. It can serve as a starting point to help governments, donors, and civil society groups identify where additional analysis, financial support, and capacity-building are needed to build effective REDD+ strategies, systems, and institutions.

During the design of REDD+, Parties recognized that REDD+ actions will likely not be sustainable unless they account for the role of local people and ecosystems. As a result, Parties defined seven “safeguards” to guide implementation of REDD+, among them transparency, participation, protection of biodiversity, and protection of the rights of local people.

Governments in REDD+ countries are tasked with providing information on how these safeguards will be “addressed and respected.” One option is to develop a national system focused on implementing the safeguards and to provide information on how the system functions. The purpose of this report is to support this process by providing a framework for what a robust national system to implement the REDD+ safeguards would include.

This working paper provides regular updates of the Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PPs) and National Programme Documents (NPDs) submitted by REDD+ Country Participants to the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and to the United Nations’ Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD).

This Working Paper analyzes Indonesia’s moratorium on new licenses in primary natural forests and peat lands. The research seeks to better characterize the moratorium’s potential impacts and identify opportunities for improvement.

In June 2011, the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice (SBSTA) requested input on a guidance document for its REDD+ “safeguard information system.” 26 groups have submitted input to date; this Working Paper describes and summarizes those submissions.