REDD+ in Asia-Pacific: Are capacity building services meeting countries’ needs? Policy brief

In the past three years tropical forested countries across the world have taken important institutional, policy, legal and piloting steps to become ‘ready’ for REDD+. Capacity building is a key component of this REDD+ readiness process and is backed by a huge investment of time and money from a large number of organizations, government agencies, communities and individuals. There has been a massive increase in capacity building during this short three year period, which begs the question:  Do the organizations providing such services have the competencies to fully meet countries’ REDD+ readiness needs?

Surprisingly, little is known about the competencies of these organizations which include government agencies, NGOs, community groups, academic institutions, think-tanks, consultancies, legal firms and media companies. To fill this knowledge gap, RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests, with financial and advisory support from the Global UN-REDD Programme through the United Nations Environment Programme, assessed the strengths and identified the gaps in the capacity building services being provided in a sample of Asia-Pacific countries against their REDD+ readiness needs. Recommendations were then given on how to improve the REDD+ capacity building process in the region.

Click here to click through the launch event presentation by Program Officer Jim Stephenson.

Back