Following more than a decade of REDD+ readiness and implementation of specific actions to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, many forested countries are now starting to approach the Results-based Payments phase. Before receiving these payments, each country must prepare a Benefit Sharing Plan (BSP). These plans lay out the basic strategies by which funds will be distributed. The objective is to distribute these funds equitably, while also maximizing emissions reductions. In attempting to balance these two goals, the question - “what is equity?” - looms large. With so many competing ideas around proper BSPs, it is useful to look at...

In May, 2021, UN-REDD organised its first Global Knowledge Exchange for Latin American countries to share important lessons learned from seeking to access Results-based Payments (RBPs) for REDD+. Over two days, participants from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Peru came together to explore the different experiences and challenges they faced with RBPs and to discuss how the second phase of GCF’s pilot programme on REDD+ RBPs can be improved. The exchange used a combination of breakout rooms and general sessions that kept participants engaged and focused on the following key questions: · What mechanisms are in...

As highlighted by the UN Decade of Family Farming, forests are essential for food security, livelihoods and natural resource management for smallholder farmers and family farmers worldwide. Rural populations source much of their diets from forests, including fruits, seeds, fungi, legumes, insects, animals and even leaves, stems and roots. As interest in the role of forests in food systems grows, so does the understanding of what foods various communities rely upon. Small-scale farmers living in or near forests are part of biologically diverse, integrated landscape system which provides them with ecosystem, economic and cultural benefits. Non-timber forest products provide food, income...

Already a hotspot for tropical forests and biodiversity, in recent decades the Lower Mekong Region (LMR) has also become a hotspot for deforestation. Between 1990-2015, the region lost about 4.7 million hectares of forest, as a result of logging, mining, and expansion of unsustainable agriculture and infrastructure. Countries have faced challenges incentivising sustainable wood supply chains and effective forest governance, while the increasing international demand for wood products and regional trade has only fueled illegal forest exploitation.    Since March 2020, the UN-REDD Programme’s Sustainable Forest Trade in the Lower Mekong Region (SFT-LMR) initiative has been working with national governments and regional and local partners across five countries in the region to fight the trade of illegal forest...

"This year, we’ve seen the worst drought ever. Usually, the rivers run dry here in this southern part of Zambia by July, but this year, they were empty already by May. The little water we have left is just enough for us- the people and the cattle. We have no water to raise any crops." - Juliette Machona, a villager living in Choma, Zambia   Juliette is 35 years old, with four kids. When she finished secondary school in Zambia, her parents couldn’t afford to send her to university, which cost USD $2,000 per year, given that the country’s minimum wage is about...