Our Journey On REDD+

OUR JOURNEY ON REDD+

The forests in Africa have experienced a gradual decline owing to exexssive deforestation for various reasons; Infact more than half of the continent’s population rely directly or indirectly on forests for their livelihoods. It is estimated that 3.4 million hectares are lost annually (FAO, 2010); This figure has been on an upward trajectory. Small-scale agriculture and fuel wood collection are the main drivers of deforestation and forest degradation.

REDD+ presents a good opportunity for Africa to protect its forests. However, in Africa, REDD+ goals frequently suffer at the hands of other development aims, with the agriculture, mining, energy and forestry sectors all driving deforestation. These underlying issues surround REDD+ underscore the need for involvement of all stakeholders, and especially local communities and indigenous peoples (IPs), for REDD+ implementation in Africa to succeed.

In responding to this Challenge, participants Committee of Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) launched a Capacity Building Program (CBP) for REDD+, under the Readiness Fund of the FCPF in October 2008, targeting forest-dependent Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), IPs and other forest-dependent people residing in forest rich developing countries in the South (Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America) with the twin goal of responding to requests from CSOs and IPs on capacity needs and to facilitate the realization of the aspirations of the UNFCCC towards emission reduction in the forest sector.

The CBP has been rolled out in phases, 2008 to 2014 and 2015 to 2017 for phases I and II, respectively. The Program was demand-driven, where forest-dependent peoples and southern CSOs make capacity building proposals to the FCPF based on their needs. Reducing emissions from forest cover change requires transparent, accountable, inclusive, and coordinated systems and institutions to govern REDD+ programs. This CBP has been supporting nationally led processes with efforts to transform the forest sector and other sectors having an impact on land use as part of a low carbon development process. It is clear that the REDD+ process is a large undertaking which cuts across spatial and temporal scales and involves multiple stakeholders and sectors.

A key lesson from CBP Phase I was that early stakeholder participation and engagement is critical to the development of viable REDD+ strategies and implementation frameworks. In light of this, it has been considered important to promote informed and meaningful involvement of stakeholders in the REDD+ implementation at the various levels. In Africa, both national and international CSOs are taking part in the REDD+ process through awareness creation and advocacy among local communities. CSOs participate as individual entities or they form networks/platforms under which they consolidate their views and opinions to represent the entire civil society community. Establishment of CSO platforms has been witnessed in a number of countries.

Within the Africa region, two projects were approved by the FCPF for support under CBP Phase II, namely i) the Pan-African Civil Society FCPF Capacity Building Program on REDD+ Project, implemented by PACJA, and ii) the Pan-African Forest-Dependent Indigenous Peoples FCPF Capacity Building Program on REDD+ Project, implemented by Mainyioto Pastoralist Integrated Development Organization (MPIDO).

The Project was approved on 14th March 2016 and the effectiveness date was 21st April 2016 and the closing date was December 31, 2019. An additional financing and an extension of the project was signed in 2018 (in order to upscale results and in response to a strong demand for sub- projects from the countries) hence the effective closing date for the project was 31st December 2019.

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