Forests & People First

The need for universal REDD+ Safeguards

Publication - 26 June, 2012
Since COP16 in Cancún, governments have agreed that safeguards are required for the implementation of REDD+. They are indispensable, both to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of REDD+ and to ensure coherence with international standards on environment and human rights.

A number of REDD+ countries have begun to develop their own national safeguard standards, a development that – if carried out in a participatory, transparent manner and in compliance with international obligations – is to be strongly encouraged. While taking into account national circumstances, common ground is neededat international level in order to ensure consistency if we want to reduce and halt deforestation globally. A robust international framework can help forest countries in developing their own national systems and generate confidence from the international community and investors.

In order to inform these processes, we have compared the various existing REDD+ relevant safeguard policies across institutions, identified major gaps and formulated a set of recommendations that could lead to a more coherent and more practicable approach to implementing safeguards.

While this paper only compares multilateral policies, bilateral contributions make up a large part of current REDD+ and forest financing. We strongly encourage national governements and bilateral agencies to review their own standards and take the necessary steps to ensure harmonisation with international safeguards.

Forests & People First - English

Matrix Charts - English

The English version is the official consultation document. However, to make the consultation available to a wide range of stakeholders we have produced Bahasa, French and Spanish translations:

Forests & People First - Bahasa

Forests & People First - French

Forests & People First - Spanish

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