Presentation given by Lasse Loft at COP22 on 9 November 2016 in Marrakesh, Morocco.

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Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF)
LAND USE AND IMPACTS LAND USE CONFLICTS AND GOVERNANCELANDSCAPE FUNCTIONING
SO
Managing risks and avoiding pitfalls to REDD+ policy
design and benefit sharing
L. Loft, T.T. Pham, G.Y. Wong, M. Brockhaus, D.N. Le, S.N. Tjajadi, C. Luttrell
Marrakech, November 9, 2016
LAND USE CONFLICTS AND GOVERNANCE

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Introduction
Source: Adapted from Wertz-Kanounnikoff & Angelsen 2009
 Occur at different governance levels
 Affect different stakeholders within
national REDD+ architectures
 During different stages of the
implementation process
 Aim is to is to identify, assess and
categorize major governance risks of
national REDD+ implementation
Subnationalactivities
Incentives
Performance based
payments (e.g. PES)
Monitoring, Reporting
Institutions
Forest management types
State(production)
State(conservation)
Private
Community
Carbon rights holder
Land owner
Concession holder
Government agencies
Community
Other stakeholders
Energyusers
Ecosystemservices users
Farmers
Consumers
Information
Policies and measures
(PAM)
Regular budgets
(national / subnational
government)
Global readiness funds Global funds
Internationalcarbon
markets
REDD funds
(National/ subnational)Verification
Policy
formu-
lation
Policy
Design
Policy
Imple-
mentation
M & E
Agenda
Setting
Complex design and implementation
processes create risks for sustainable
emissions reductions
and social and environmental side-objectives

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Method
Qualitative assessment of implementation risks, applying a hybrid approach of deductive and
inductive thematic analysis
Data: findings of CIFOR’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+ country profiles
 Description of drivers of deforestation; analysis of political, economic and institutional
contexts; the policy options for REDD+ in the country.
 Based on extensive literature reviews, expert interviews and consultation workshops
Additional scientific literature, donor reports and policy documents
Verification of results through consultation with in-country experts

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Countries in the Global Comparative Study on REDD+
Source: http://www.cifor.org/gcs/modules/redd-policies/
( )
( )

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Risks analysed
Policy
Formu-
lation
Policy
Design
Policy
Imple-
mentation
M & E
Agenda
Setting
1.Overlapping policies, contradicting measures,
inequitable distribution of benefits and burdens
2.MRV: risks of artificial baseline setting and
asymmetric information
3.Accessing REDD+ finance: risks in meeting and
measuring ‘performance’
4.REDD+ BSMs: risks to equity from inadequate
design
5.Risks of illegitimate decision-making processes
and policy implementation
6.Carbon and tenure rights: risks of powerful elites
securing rights to benefits
7.Challenges of multilevel governance
Implementation stage Risks

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Policy formulation: Definition of objectives
Risks:
1. Overlapping policies and
contradicting measures
2. Inequitable distribution
of benefits and burdens
Definition of national REDD+ objectives determines scope of activities and targeted
stakeholders
Examples:
 In Tanzania REDD+ goals are overshadowed by well-
funded donor initiatives that aim to develop small- and
large-scale commercial agriculture
 85% of Vietnam’s forest area is managed by state-owned
companies; large scale land owners in Brazil account for
about 80% of deforestation
Source: Loft et al. 2016; Luttrell et al. 2013

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Policy design: Reference emissions levels and
monitoring
Risks:
 Inaccurate setting of reference levels
and monitoring
 Creation of artificial emissions
reductions
 Market distortion due to asymmetric
information
Determines emissions reductions, impacts potentially targeted stakeholders
Examples:
 Improvements in remote sensing and data
availability, but…
 Administrative capacity for MRV still
considered
 low in PNG, Nepal, Laos and
Mozambique
 moderate in Burkina Faso and
Cameroon
 high in Bolivia, Peru and Vietnam
 very high in Indonesia, Brazil and DRC
 Different sources of relevant data,
 Vietnam and Indonesia with separate
Source: Ochieng et al. 2016; Loft et al. 2016

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Policy design: Benefit sharing
Determines eligible benefitting stakeholders, sets incentives for land use change
Benefit Sharing
Mechanism
Countries Challenges
Fund-based
approaches*
*incl. PES elements
Brazil, Burkina Faso,
Cameroon, DRC, Tanzania,
Indonesia and Vietnam
Potentially large amount of payments channelled
to the funds provokes organizational
competitions and conflicts over power and
interests
Nested
approaches*
*incl. PES elements
Brazil, Peru Require a clear devolution of rights and
a multilevel governance system in order to be
effective
Building on
existing systems*
*incl. PES elements
Cameroon, Nepal, Vietnam Risk of reinforcing any systemic regulatory,
procedural or governance flaws inherent in the
system
Not yet defined Bolivia, Laos PDR, Risk of disincentivizing performance in reducing

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Policy implementation: Stakeholder participation
Risks:
 Domination by powerful
groups, elite capture of
benefits, corruption
 REDD+ policies and measures
perceived as inequitable and
illegitimate, may lead to
opposition to implementation
Determines procedural equity and legitimacy of implementation
Examples:
 DRC, Cameroon: participation in agenda setting is very
much limited to a few state and international actors,
 Laos PDR, Peru: in early stages with FPIC not well
implemented
 In Vietnam those forest stewards that are not eligible
to PFES are among main actors of deforestation

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Managing risks and avoiding pitfalls
…how REDD+ PAMs are designed, such as…
 Perceived inequity and illegitimacy of cost
and burden sharing
 Capacity constraints at subnational
governance levels
Some of the risks are related to…
… a country’s political and economic
context, e.g.
 Differences in data collection and
discrepancies in forest data;
 Lack of legal clarity on carbon rights and
occurrence of common tenure rights
problems;
 Could be managed through reflexive
policy learning and adaptive
implementation
 Need to be carefully considered; room
for mitigation but often beyond the scope
of control

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Conclusions
 Clear objectives of national REDD+ implementation need to be set early in the policy
process
 Understanding country specific risks and how they might influence the design of a
REDD+ policy is a necessary step early in the design and implementation process
 A possible approach to identifying and evaluating existing and potential risks and
solutions is through inclusive multi-stakeholder forums
 Ongoing development of REDD+ safeguards would benefit from a careful review of
these risks, and the development of specific criteria and indicators

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Open access:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journal
s/environmental-conservation
We acknowledge the support from:
the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), the
European Union (EU), the UK Government, the International Climate
Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment,
Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), Swiss
Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the CGIAR
Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (CRP-FTA)
with financial support from the CGIAR Fund.
Thank you!