The world is at a juncture where future financing for forests and REDD+ seems uncertain, and there is a clear risk of a narrative of disappointment setting in. These pressures demand a redoubling of international efforts.
In light of the new challenges and the lessons learned, this paper suggests several pathways to be considered for the next phase of financing of efforts to protect forests, and to enable forest countries to adopt alternative development pathways in which deforestation is reduced. These pathways include the need to:
- Clarify a vision of REDD+ and how it can best be achieved. REDD+ could be reframed as an outcome, rather than as a process, allowing countries the flexibility to define their best pathway forward, to set out their own ‘theory of change’, and to identify the resources they most need to slow, halt and reverse deforestation.
- Catalyse longer-term funding. Donor countries could send a powerful signal by making multi-year commitments to REDD+ in forest countries.
- Integrate REDD+ into broader rural and economic development frameworks. Forest protection needs to move from the margins to the mainstream of a country’s sustainable development plans in order to be financially and politically sustainable over time, and to have cross-governmental participation and ownership.
- Reward innovation and success. In the period before a new international climate change agreement is ratified, public funds could provide critical positive momentum, and build confidence in a future system that would include the mitigation potential of forests.
- Ensure that funding is effectively deployed. Communication and information flow could be improved.
- Engage the private sector. This paper suggests a greater focus be placed on understanding the many actors within, and potential ways to engage, the private sector; and identifies ways to mobilise the resources, tools, and power of private finance in supporting efforts by countries to protect the world’s remaining tropical forests.