1. Advocacy-driven monitoring Chatham House 2015 David Young

2. Tackling deforestation through linking REDD+ and FLEGT
Cameroon
Ghana
Liberia
(Republic of Congo)
2014 to 2017
Funded by the European Union and DFID
Civil society monitoring systems in place in all four priority countries.
Key REDD+ and FLEGT LAS governance principles respected in practice.
National REDD+ plans build on FLEGT VPA achievements (Linking REDD and FLEGT).
Tenure rights seen as critical to effective REDD+ and FLEGT implementation.

3. What problem are we trying to solve?
FLEGT has put considerable emphasis on the legality assurance system and wood-tracking.
We want to focus on developing a tool to monitor ‘governance improvements’.
So we will develop monitoring systems that focus on our ‘governance priorities’.
These will feed into national FLEGT and REDD+ monitoring systems.

4. Concentric rings of monitoring FLEGT
c.1.2 Types of independent monitoring
Concentric rings of monitoring FLEGT
Development
Forest Governance
Legality
Assurance
System
Independent
Audit
Civil society-led Monitoring
VPA Impact Monitoring

5. What’s the difference from IFM?
Monitoring system
Independent monitoring
Indicator-based
Iterative: repeat the same assessments to observe change.
Could be conducted by anyone (and may be absorbed into other FLEGT or REDD+ processes).
“Advocacy-driven monitoring”
Case studies or ‘missions’.
Open-ended, investigatory, no two reports the same.
Clear rationale for maintaining independence.

6. What are our governance priorities?
Governance indicators
Our focus
A wide concept, related to
Transparency
Participation
Coordination
Capacity
Accountability
Access to information
Participation (in policy formulation and implementation)
Equity in benefit sharing
Rights, to trees, forests and land

7. What are our advocacy priorities?
Ghana
Greater FC transparency
Ghana’s VPA Transparency List is complied with.
Informed communities access information that affects their natural resource base
Access by communities to information on logging
… on REDD+ projects
… on large land investments
Stronger participation and clearer consent in forest management decisions
Availability and functionality of decision making platforms at the community level
Quality of consent in the decisions on logging.
… on REDD+ projects operations.
… on large land investments.
Improved equity and fairness in benefit sharing from Forest Resources
Revenue collection by the Forestry Commission
District assembly use of royalties
Compliance with Social Responsibility Agreements and compensation

8. What are our advocacy priorities?
Cameroon
Improved access to information
Community access to information on REDD+ process and projects
… to information on social agreements
… to information on benefit sharing
… to information on land investments
Fair and transparent benefit sharing mechanism
Community participation in the negotiations, implementation and monitoring of social agreements
Compliance of social agreements with legal and contractual requirements
Management by Municipalities of forest and land revenue for communities
Monitoring compliance with social obligations by the administration

9. What are our advocacy priorities?
Liberia
Access to information
Forest communities access to information on social agreement
… on community benefits from forest operations
... about REDD+ risks and benefits
Liberia’s VPA Transparency Annex is complied with
Benefits redistribution
Community participation in the negotiations, implementation and monitoring of social agreement implementation
Compliance of social agreements with legal and contractual requirements
Management by counties of forest and land revenue for communities
Monitoring by the government agencies of compliance with all social obligations
Consistency in benefit redistribution systems across logging, agriculture, and REDD+ sectors

10. Methodology includes:
How do we do it?
Reaction
Methodology includes:
Freedom of Information requests
Building ‘social SIGIF’
Social Audit (e.g. Liberia 2013)
Working with local communities/CBOs
Desk analysis of social agreements
Semi-structured interviews
Focus group discussions
Direct observation
Multi-stakeholder meetings
Consultancies
Action
Outputs
Methodology
Indicator

11. Reflections so far… Still at system design stage, no results yet.
Already contributing to greater attention on social outcomes of FLEGT.
Has focused our mind on the changes we want to see.
Monitoring system = databases, live monitoring?
Need to work more at integration with other FLEGT REDD+ monitoring plans and systems.
Four-country study on social ‘obligations’ planned.

12. David Young, Technical Advisor
Tackling deforestation through linking REDD+ and FLEGT project