World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is going ahead “without significant participation by indigenous peoples or civil society”

From 11-13 March 2009, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility Participants Committee met in Gamboa, Panama. The Bank Information Center took part as an NGO Observer and has posted the following report on its website.

The number of countries admitted to the FCPF has now increased to 37, through approval of countries’ R-Pins (“Readiness Plan Information Notes”) or, in the case of Indonesia which skipped the R-Pin stage, a draft R-Plan (“Readiness Plan”). Yet the FCPF has still not handed out any money. Two R-Plans are currently available on the FCPF website, for Panama and Guyana. As BIC notes, “Both plans have been developed without any significant participation by indigenous peoples or civil society, even though both plans claim to be creating broad multi-stakeholder efforts, and addressing deforestation on indigenous lands.” In Indonesia, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has raised concerns about the country’s draft regulation on REDD. Nevertheless, Guyana’s and Panama’s R-Plans (and possibly Indonesia’s) are to be considered for approval at the next FCPF Participants Committee meeting in June 2009.

World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility meeting in Panama

6 April 2009

Read highlights from the 2nd Participants Committee Meeting of the FCPF, at which BIC served as an NGO observer.

Delegates from a variety of donor and developing countries from around the world concluded the second meeting of the Participants Committee of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) in March in Gamboa, Panama. The FCPF was established to help countries reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in order to slow global warming.

The governing Participants Committee approved the entrance of twelve new countries, including Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chile, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Mozambique, Suriname, Tanzania, and Thailand, and paved the way for approval of the first two “readiness plans” (called R-Plans by the FCPF), those of Guyana and Panama, at the next meeting in June. Both plans have been developed without any significant participation by indigenous peoples or civil society, even though both plans claim to be creating broad multi-stakeholder efforts, and addressing deforestation on indigenous lands.

The document, which will guide the approval of R-Plans, came out of the Panama meeting strengthened in terms of its mention of indigenous land rights, the drivers of deforestation including extractive industries, transportation and energy infrastructure and others, as well as ways to address the non-carbon values of forests such as rural livelihoods and biodiversity. It is unlikely, however, to be rigorously applied to cases such as Guyana, Panama and Indonesia, where there is a strong push by donors and developing country governments to fund “readiness” efforts quickly and pave the way for pilot experiences of including forests in carbon markets.

Some developing country representatives charged that the FCPF risked “dying on the vine” because it has neither raised sufficient funds to support country readiness, nor has it capitalized the carbon fund to support long term REDD activities. Some donor country participants lamented that they had perhaps put their money in the wrong fund, because the UNREDD fund, started well after the FCPF, has already begun disbursing grants, while the FCPF has yet to hand out a dime.

SEE THE NGO OBSERVER’S SUMMARY REPORT:

Highlights of 2nd Participants Committee Meeting of FCPF, By the Bank Information Center as NGO Observer, March 16, 2009 (PDF, 99KB)