Safeguards in Bilateral REDD+ Finance

Summary

Much of the money for REDD-related initiatives pledged so far has come from bilateral donors. This document is a compilation of papers focused on these donors and their implementation of REDD+ safeguards. They stem from an initiative aimed at helping bilateral investors in REDD+ implement REDD+ safeguards more strategically. The initiative is funded by the Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA) and implemented by Climate Focus and the World Resources Institute (WRI), with additional technical and financial assistance from the USAID funded Forest Carbon, Markets and Communities (FCMC) Program. 

The first paper in this series, Safeguards for REDD+ from a Donor Perspective, was published in October 2013 and was created for a workshop for bilateral donors held in London on September 10th, 2013. It aims to provide an introduction to some of the key terms and concepts relevant to REDD+ safeguard implementation. It also gives an overview of trends in current donor policies aimed at reducing social and environmental risks associated with their investments. The remaining three papers, combined in this report, were written in preparation for a second workshop held in Brussels on April 8th, 2014. They investigate research questions raised by participants in the London Workshop. The first of these three papers explores some of the complexities associated with REDD+ safeguards and results-based payments. It gives an overview of experiences to date with carbon market and results-based payments and provides options for how bilateral donors seeking to encourage adherence to safeguards in initiatives receiving results-based funding. The second paper looks at monitoring and evaluation of REDD+ safeguard implementation. It focuses particularly on how donors can use the existing systems in REDD+ countries to help ensure effective monitoring and evaluation of safeguard implementation. The third paper focuses on REDD+ safeguards and donor coordination. It looks at some of the ways in which donors can benefit from improving coordination in safeguard implementation and concludes with recommendations for investors on how to better coordinate their activities.