REDD+ in the Post-Copenhagen World: Recommendations for Interim Public Finance

REDD+ holds the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve the livelihoods of forest-dependent people, and conserve biodiversity. The interim public funding announced during and since the COP15 could play a strategic role in helping to realize this potential. The overall goal of this funding should be to support progress towards REDD+ national programs that are "efficient, effective, and equitable." In pursuit of this goal, such funding should also be structured to support, among other things, the development of "compliance-grade" REDD+ programs that could potentially link up with emerging regulatory markets and attract private investors. If focused in a strategic manner, interim funding could capitalize upon emerging opportunities to engage both the drivers of deforestation and forest-dependent peoples in REDD+ and facilitate low-emissions rural development. Drawing on lessons from Brazil and Indonesia, the Governors' Climate and Forest (GCF) task force, and the agricultural commodity roundtable processes, we highlight several areas where interim funding could move nations and states down the path to compliance-grade REDD+, providing the basis for lasting improvements in the lives of forest-dependent people and favoring low-emission systems for producing food, fiber, fuel, and feed.