Analysing the Evolution and Challenges of REDD+ Policy Implementation

Analysing REDD+:
Challenges and Choices
Arild Angelsen, CIFOR & Norwegian Univ. of Life Sciences
THINKING beyond the canopy Rio, 18 June 2012

2012
3rd edited
volume

2009

2008

3

3 generations of REDD+ research

Focus
Key
ques+ons
Books

1
Designing
REDD+
What
should
REDD+
look
like
to
Moving
Ahead

and
learning
from
be
eﬀec>ve,
eﬃcient
and
Realising
REDD+

related
experiences
equitable
(3E)?

(Analysing
REDD
in
the
past
+)

2
The
poli>cal
How
is
REDD+
being
decided
Analysing
REDD+

economy
and
and
implemented,
and
why?

implementa+on
of
(What
hinders
or
enables

REDD+
decision
and
implementa>on
of

3E
REDD+
policies
and
projects?)

3
Assessing
the
impact
Does
REDD+
work?

of
REDD+
(How
can
REDD+
work
beNer?)
(All)

(How
should
REDD+
outcomes

be
measured?)

THINKING beyond the canopy

The Global
Comparative Study
on REDD+ (GCS)

§  3 research
components +
1 knowledge sharing
§  A diverse set of
questions and
methods
§  A large number of
partners
§  12 countries


Structure of the book


How to achieve
transformational change (TC)?
§  Definition of TC
a shift in discourse, attitudes, power relations, and deliberate policy
and protest action that leads policy formulation and implementation
away from business as usual policy approaches that directly or
indirectly support deforestation and degradation
§  Examples of TC
§  changes in economic, regulatory and governance frameworks,
including the devolution of rights to local users
§  removals of perverse incentives: subsidies and concessions that
serve selective economic interests and stimulate DD
§  reforms of forest industry policies and regulations that effectively
reduce unsustainable extraction
REDD+ and TC: a chicken – egg problem

4 Is framework
REDD+
Interna+onal
Policy
Arena

REDD+

Agenda
SePng:

incen>ves
+
ideas

REDD+
Na+onal
and
Subna+onal
Ac+on
Arena

Ins>tu>ons

Path
Dependency
and
S>ckiness

Informa>on

Data,
Knowledge

Ideas
Interests

Actors

prac>ces

Beliefs,
Discursive
Materialis>c,

Individual,
Organized

Business
as
Transforma+onal

usual
ShiSs
in
incen>ves,
discourses
and
power
rela>ons
Change

Policy
Process

Output:
Policy
decision
Outcome:
Policy
impact

-‐ broader
policies
&
ins+tu+ons
-‐ 
emissions/-‐removals

-‐ Speciﬁc
policies
and
measures

-‐ 
livelihoods

-‐ admin
and
technical
capacity

-‐ 
biodiversity

-‐ admin
and
technical
capacity


How to achieve TC?
1. Changing economic incentives
§  International financial resources exogenous to the national
and subnational systems
§  The core REDD+ idea: REDD+ should change the basic
benefit–cost equation
§  Win-win-lose-lose:
•  large actors likely to lose (politically unacceptable to
compensate)
•  full international compensation of REDD+ costs is
unrealistic


… how to achieve TC
2. New ideas and information
§  A new discourse on the value of standing forests and their
role in CC, a potential “game changer”
§  Spotlight on old and new issues & need for change of BAU
•  Indigenous/local rights, conflicts local – external uses
•  Governance & corruption
§  Redefine roles between developed and developing countries:
poor countries providing services to the world
3. New actors and coalitions
§  Changing economic incentives and new ideas and discourses
can lead to shifts in power relations among key actors
§  New actors enter the REDD+ arena and gain power and
influence in decision making
In the end: money speaks louder than words

REDD+ and the global economy
(Chapt 4)
§  Globalisation and market & financial liberalisation
•  Increased exposure of forests to global trade and
investment
•  Aggravate historical trends of DD
•  REDD+ implementation more challenging, but also
opportunities (influencing market chains)
§  Implications for REDD+
•  REDD+ as PES more expensive:
§ need for other policies
•  Look at both demand and supply side
§  Detailed studies of 3 regions

The evolution of REDD+ (Chapt 3)

§  REDD+ - as an idea - has been extremely successful
•  A good idea (CC, result-based, significant funding,
burden sharing)
•  Sufficiently broad/vague to accommodate different
interests
§  REDD+ has evolved significantly, driven by:
•  the absence of a new international climate agreement
•  strong business as usual (BAU) interests
•  a large number of actors with diverging agendas
•  experience and learning


REDD+ at 4 key arenas


Key trends

Objectives: CO2 Co-benefits

Policies: PES Broad PAMs Forest policies

Scale: National Local/projects

Funding: Rich pay poor REDD+ countries

Funding: Market Public (aid)
16

A dilemma
§  REDD+ has attracted many actors with different
agendas and ideologies, each trying to get a
piece of the perceived REDD+ cake.
§  Result: a diversified and less focussed REDD+
agenda, which risks losing the initial
characteristics of REDD+ that made it attractive
in the first place.
§  But: broad coalitions of different interests and
actors with different ideologies are needed to get
the political support for REDD+ and can also be a
basis for transformational changes.

Part 2a: Implementing REDD+:
National Level Perspectives

§ Politics and Power (Chapt 5)

§ Scales of Governance (Chapt 6)

§ Financing REDD+ (Chapt 7)

§ Who benefits and why (Chapt 8)

Political economy framework


Politics and power in national
REDD+ policy processes
§  REDD+ requires 4 preconditions to overcome politico-
economic hurdles:
•  Relative autonomy of nation states
•  National ownership over REDD+ policy processes
•  Inclusive REDD+ policy processes
•  Coalitions calling for transformational change
§  Formulating and implementing national REDD+
strategies most challenging in countries where
international actors drive REDD+
§  Breaking up institutional and political path dependencies
will need participation of state elites and business actors


Actors shaping the policy discourse (%
with a REDD+ position in media)


Multiple levels and multiple
challenges for REDD+
§  REDD+ a multilevel endeavour
•  Must ensure the interconnections of global demands,
national and sub-national structures, and local
peoples’ needs and aspirations.
§  Sound information flows important
•  Between local and national levels are essential for
accountable MRV and leakage control.
•  Across the levels can increase negotiation powers of
disadvantaged groups and ensure the 3Es
§  REDD+ multilevel governance systems must match
incentives and interests with transparent institutions to
reduce conflict

Multilevel governance mechanisms


Financing REDD+


Financing REDD+
§  Where are we?
•  Short term finance available, yet slow disbursement and scarce
investment opportunities
•  No adequate and predictable long-term strategy to meet REDD+
financial needs
§  Interim phase with no ambitious CC mitigation goals:
•  REDD+ finance will be mobilized by the public sector
•  Likely to be fragmented and channelled through various agencies
•  Thus, need to test financing options that leverage private sector
finance and directly address DD
§  Options for financing:
•  Middle income countries: self finance, engage in results-based
agreements with donors and international agencies
•  Fragile states rely on ODA-type finances, combining financial
support, technical assistance, and policy guidance


Who should benefit and why?
§  Designing effective benefit sharing mechanisms for REDD+
•  Must first determine what REDD+ seeks to achieve as the
objectives affect the design of benefit and cost sharing
mechanisms

§  Benefits are not only financial
•  Few REDD+ projects are providing direct financial transfers
•  Thus benefit sharing must tend to a wide range of activities
§  The legitimacy of the decision making institutions and
processes is critical
•  Legal clarity
•  Consensus on which institutions have the right to make
decisions
•  Attention to procedural rights

Discourses on who should benefit

Effectiveness and efficiency vs equity discourses
Equity
discourse
1:
benefits
should
go
to
actors
with
legal

rights

Equity
discourse
2:
benefits
should
go
to
low-‐emi0ng
forest

stewards

Equity
discourse
3:
benefits
should
go
to
those
incurring
costs

Equity
discourse
4:
benefits
should
go
to
effec6ve

implementers


Examples of potential REDD+ beneficiaries and
the costs and benefits they may accrue


Part 2b: Implementing REDD+
Subnational projects

§ Why tenure matters (Chapt 9)
§ REDD+ projects combine old and
new (Chapt 10)
§ Local stakeholder hopes and worries
(Chapt 11)
§ Implications of landscape location
(Chapt 12)

Tenure matters in REDD+

§  Although unprecedented attention to forest
tenure, national action limited
§  Project-level action faces substantial obstacles if
no national backing
§  National institutions often inadequate to address
customary rights
§  Policy makers ought to address underlying
causes of DD and target tenure issues in
parallel, though both likely to face strong
resistance

Forest tenure distribution in 2008


Exclusion rights and practice


REDD+ projects as hybrids

§  Most projects intend to combine ICDP and PES
§  Advantages under policy and market
uncertainty:
Ø Make early progress on project establishment
Ø Fallback if PES does not go ahead
§  Yet there are challenges:
Ø ICDP has underperformed
Ø PES is played down and this might have
negative consequences

Proponent expectations on impacts


Local hopes and worries

§  Local forest users in sample understood REDD+ is
fundamentally about forest projection;
they hoped REDD+ would improve incomes and worried
would hurt livelihoods
§  Local participants depend on proponents for information
about REDD+, and there may be need for independent
brokers or advisers
§  Key challenges:
Ø Communicate clearly to villagers
Ø Involve them meaningfully in design and
implementation
Ø Balance forest protection with welfare concerns

Local understanding of REDD+


Hopes & worries concerning REDD
+


Location of forest carbon projects

§  Across countries:
•  Countries with a higher biodiversity index and
jurisdictions with more protected area
§  Brazil and Indonesia:
•  Jurisdictions with higher deforestation rates and forest
carbon densities
§  6 GCS countries:
•  Sample villages that are inside project boundaries
depend on agriculture, emphasising the challenge of
implementing REDD+ without undermining
agricultural livelihoods

Distribution of REDD+ projects


Mean values of factors considered in
site selection in municipalities &
districts with & without REDD+ projects


Chapter
13 Performance indicators and REDD+ implementation

§  REDD+ and payments may be made based on
performance, which implies that there must be
assessments of the results of REDD+ programmes.
§  In the readiness phase support will go to policy reforms,
rather than proven emissions reductions. Good
performance indicators are critical in this and all three
REDD+ phases.
§  Valuable lessons on governance indicators can be learned
from the aid sector: avoid seeking the perfect indicator and
use expert judgment extensively.

Indicators
§  Challenges:
•  Monitor results
•  Must be credible to stakeholders
•  Appropriate for the objectives of the each
REDD+ implementation phase.

§  Rationale:
•  Management: keep efforts on track
•  Evaluation: assess success of actions

§  Lessons from ODA experience:
•  Timing of assessment (3-5 y) vs. timing of
outcomes & impacts (10-15 y)
•  Attribution problems
•  Reliability of information

PHASE
3

PHASE
1

PHASE
2
RESULTS-‐BASED

READINESS
POLICY
MEASURES
ACTION

Implementa+on
Input
indicators

metrics
•  Readiness
funds

disbursed

•  Consulta>ons
done

Output
indicators

•  Pilot
projects

•  R-‐PP
approved

Performance
Output
indicators
Outcome
indicators

metrics
•  Strategies,
policies
• Gross
deforesta>on

and
laws
adopted
• Increased
share
of

•  Ins>tu>ons
(MRV
restored
na>ve

etc.)
in
place
forest

• Cover

Impact
indicators

• Quan>ﬁed
changes

in
carbon
emissions

Input Output Outcome Impact

Results chain

Chapter
14 Baselines and monitoring in local REDD+ projects

§  Robust standards and methods have been developed to
estimate emissions from deforestation at the project level.
§  Because baseline and monitoring methodologies were adopted
only recently, many pilot projects do not comply.
§  The next generation of projects should identify or develop
suitable methodologies before investing in the development of
their baselines and MRV systems.

IPCC has developed
measurement methods
that serve as the basis for
several standards
§  VCS
•  VM0004 – Avoid planned LUC
•  VM0006 –Mosaic D&D
•  VM0007 – REDD
•  VM0009 –Avoided mosaic deforestation
•  VM0015 – Avoided unplanned
deforestation

§  ACR REDD framework module
•  Planned deforestation
•  Unplanned deforestation
•  Extraction of fuelwood

MRV survey of 17 demonstration
projects show most do not meet
requirements of VCS or ACR
§  Prior LU often difficult to verify in spatially explicit way
§  Projects limit monitoring to the project area; no reference
region or leakage belt
§  9 of 17 project developers modeled historical rate of
deforestation in the project area; three are in the process
§  3 of 17 projects use spatial models to project the location
of future deforestation; the other 14 rely on expert
knowledge
§  13 project have RS images for more than three points in
10 year period
§  7 of 17 projects have high resolution data (<10m); all
have medium resolution data (10–60m).

Chapter
15 EFs: Converting land use change to CO2 estimates

§  Lack of data limits converting area estimates of DD to carbon
stock changes in most tropical countries.
§  Institutional capacity to conduct inventories and
measurements for improving GHG inventories in AFOLU has
been slow in non-Annex I.
§  Constraints can be overcome with investments in productive
partnerships between technical services in REDD+ countries,
intergovernmental agencies and ARIs during the readiness
phase.

Two methods are available for
estimating EFs

C
uptake
via

growth

Gain – loss method
Disturbance
C
Stock
Harvest

Stock difference method

C
stock
at
C
stock
at

>me
1
>me
2

Chapter
16 A stepwise framework for developing REDD+ RELs

§  Developing RELs is constrained by lack of quality data.
§  Data availability and quality should determine the methods for
RELs. Consideration of drivers of DD will be important for
adjusting RELs to national circumstances.
§  A stepwise approach to developing RELs will facilitate broad
participation, early startup and the motivation for
improvements over time, alongside efforts to enhance
measurement and monitoring capacities.

Criteria for comparing country
circumstances and strategies

Expand on the Stepwise
approach and link it to the
financial incentive baseline
Historical
Na+onal

deforesta>on
circumstances

and
forest
relevant
for

degrada>on
BAU
(e.g.,

Na+onal
Other

drivers)

circumstances
considera+ons

relevant
for
(e.g.,
eﬃcient

FIB
(e.g.,
use
of
funds
&

BAU
baseline
capabili>es)
uncertainty)

Financial
incen+ve
benchmark
(FIB)

(compensa>on
benchmark)
baseline

REDD+ safeguards in national policy
Chapter
17 discourse and pilot projects
§  REDD+ policy makers, project personnel and investors value
REDD+ safeguards.
§  To gain national-level buy-in for REDD+ safeguards, national
sovereignty must be recognised and competing safeguard
policies should be harmonised.
§  The REDD+ safeguards dialogue needs to move towards
action. This includes introducing guidelines, low-cost
strategies and capacity building to support the interpretation.

Some key findings
§  REDD+ safeguards are a set of
norms or institutions that guide
expectations surrounding social and
environmental outcomes of REDD.
§  Several international and nonprofit
organisations have articulated
safeguard standards for REDD+
policies at the national level (e.g.
FCPF)
§  Countries have little capacity to
monitor social and biodiversity
impacts.
§  There is uneven compliance with
safeguards in demonstration
projects

The book’s 5 key messages
§  As an idea, REDD+ is a success story:
•  Significant result-based funding to address an
urgent need for climate change mitigation
•  Sufficiently broad to serve as a canopy, under
which a wide range of actors can grow their own trees
§  REDD+ faces huge challenges:
•  Powerful political and economic interests
•  Coordination across various government levels and agencies;
•  Benefits to balance effectiveness and equity
•  Tenure insecurity and safeguards must be genuinely addressed
•  Transparent institutions, reliable carbon monitoring and realistic
reference levels to build result-based systems


… key messages
§  REDD+ requires - and can catalyse - Trans Change
•  New economic incentives, New information and
discourses, New actors & New policy coalitions;
all have the potential to move domestic policies
away from the BAU trajectory.
§  REDD+ projects are hybrids in high deforestation areas:
•  Mix the enforcement of regulations and support to alternative
livelihoods (ICDP) with result-based incentives (PES).
•  Projects located in high deforestation and high forest carbon
areas, yielding high additionality if they succeed.
§  ‘No regret’ policy options exist:
•  Build political support and coalitions for change.
•  Invest in adequate information systems.
•  Implement policies desirable regardless of CC objectives.

Thanks
We acknowledge the support from:

NORAD and the Ministry of Environment of Norway,
AusAID (Australia),
European Commission,
Dept. of Energy and Climate Change & Dept. for Int. Dev. (UK),
FinAid (Finland),
Fonds Français pour l'Environnement Mondial (France)

&
all
research
partners
and
individuals

that
have
contributed
to
the
GCS
research

Analysing the Evolution and Challenges of REDD+ Policy Implementation

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