Presented by CIFOR Scientist Amy Duchelle on behalf of the Global Comparative Study (GCS) REDD+ Subnational Initiatives research group on 12 December 2016 at CBD COP13 in Cancun, Mexico.

1. Evaluating the impacts of REDD+
interventions on forests and people
Amy E. Duchelle
On behalf of GCS REDD+ Subnational Initiatives research group
12th December 2016, CBD COP 13, CI & IIED Side Event

2. THINKING beyond the canopy
Context
 Paris Climate Agreement
recognizes key role of forests
in climate change mitigation
 REDD+ is included in many
countries’ commitments
towards keeping global
temperature rise below 2.0oC
 Since 2007, hundreds of
subnational REDD+ initiatives
implemented across the
tropics => provide opportunity
to evaluate forest and
livelihood outcomes

3. THINKING beyond the canopy
CIFOR’s Global
Comparative Study (GCS)
on REDD+
• To support REDD+ policy arenas
and practitioner communities with:
- information
- analysis
- tools
• To measure 3E+ outcomes:
- effectiveness
- efficiency
- equity and co-benefits

4. THINKING beyond the canopy
Subnational REDD+ Initiatives in GCS
Comparison
(Control)
REDD+ site
(Intervention)
Before After
IMPACT
Intervention
After
Control
After
Intervention
Before
Control
Before
2010 / 2011 2013 / 2014
• 6 countries
• 22 initiatives
• 150 villages
• 4,000
households
Methods described in detail in Technical Guidelines (Sunderlin et al. 2016)

5. THINKING beyond the canopy
Site selection, sampling and matching
 In early 2010, selected subnational initiatives in 6
countries where site boundaries and intervention areas
determined, but conditional interventions not yet offered.
 Rapid rural appraisal => compile data on 22
characteristics (e.g. distance to market, local institutions,
main drivers of deforestation) for 15 intervention villages
and 15 control villages per site.
 Covariate matching using Mahalanobis distance metric to
select 4 intervention and 4 control villages per site.
 Random sample of 30 households per village (total 240
households per site).
Sills et al. in review

6. THINKING beyond the canopy
Initiative design and implementation
 Interviews with initiative proponents: Proponent Appraisal
(2010), Survey of Project Implementation (2011), Proponent
Challenges Survey (2013)
 Survey of Village Interventions (proponents, key informants):
characterize all forest interventions in study villages
0
20
40
60
Brazil Peru Cameroon Tanzania Indonesia Vietnam
#interventions
enabling measures disincentives incentives
n=5
n=2
n=2
n=6
n=6
n=1

7. THINKING beyond the canopy
B A C I
C IB A
B A
B A
Biophysical data
• Global Forest Change (“Hansen”) data 2000-2014 at 22 sites
• Locally calibrated product based on dense time series data
(BFAST) and biomass datasets at 6 sites
Bos et al. in prep
• Assessment of congruence between carbon
and biodiversity benefits at Indonesian sites
(Murray et al. 2015)
time
deforestation

8. THINKING beyond the canopy
Socioeconomic data
Village and Women’s Focus Groups, and Household Surveys
• Demography
• Institutions (focus groups only)
• Assets and income (hh only)
• Tenure security
• Land use
• Subjective well-being
• Involvement in / assessment of
REDD+ initiative and specific
forest interventions

9. THINKING beyond the canopy
Key findings
 Minimal reduced tree cover loss at REDD+ sites; performance
appears worse in analysis without controls (Bos et al. in prep)
 3/4 of households at REDD+ sites subject to interventions;
65% of those reported changes in land use (Resosudarmo et al. in prep)
 REDD+ initiatives in Indonesia located in high biodiversity
areas with lower than average carbon density (Murray et al. 2015)
REDD+ impacts on forests
REDD+ impacts on people
 No negative impacts on income and well-being, but also no
evidence of co-benefits (De Sassi et al. in prep; Sunderlin et al. in prep)
 Little advancement on tenure (Sunderlin et al. in review)
 Incentives help alleviate negative well-being impacts of
regulations alone (Duchelle et al. in review)

10. THINKING beyond the canopy
Discussion
 Flexibility needed for analyzing evolving policy process
(e.g. some REDD+ projects => jurisdictional programs;
interventions beyond conditional rewards)
 Good controls needed for BACI approach; our study
demonstrates that it is possible to improve selection of
controls with matching based on rapid rural appraisal data
 Slow REDD+ implementation and cautious smallholder
response make it difficult to separate real effects from
general noise of data
 Planned 3rd round of data collection at 8 sites in Indonesia,
Brazil and Peru to assess longer-term impacts

11. Financial support for GCS REDD+
www.cifor.org/gcs
a.duchelle@cgiar.org