Presented by Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti (CIFOR-ICRAF) at "2023 FLARE Annual Meeting - Parallel Session 16: REDD+ and local livelihoods", Nairobi, on 14 Oct 2023

1. Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti (j.sarmiento@cifor-icraf.org) and Anne M. Larson
CIFOR-ICRAF
Can REDD+ safeguards ‘do better’ for
Indigenous Peoples and local communities?
Perspectives from a literature review

2. • A “set of principles, rules and procedures put in place to achieve social and
environmental goals” (Roe et al. 2013).
• Arose in the work of multilateral development banks aiming to avoid, mitigate, and
minimize adverse impacts from investment and development activities.
• REDD+ (Cancun) safeguards arose in response to IP & LC concerns over its potential impact
on their rights & territories.
• Development of standards for VCMs & guidelines by multilateral financial institutions.
• Urgent to understand their role as the climate crises prompts interest in ‘nature-based
solutions’.
Safeguards: buzzword or transformational practice?

3. Safeguards: supporting equity,
supporting effectiveness
• Influx of investment in tropical forests can bolster SD
objectives, but also poses risks to communities.
• Critical contributions of IPs & LCs to biodiversity
conservation, carbon sequestration, and landscape
restoration.
• Opportunity to expand rights and support country climate
(e.g., NDCs) and development (e.g., SDGs) ambitions
• How best to recognise and address challenges on the
mainstreaming of the realisation that equity supports
effectiveness?
• Can safeguards leverage a transformation in support for
community rights?

4. Review - Method
• Literature search of scholarly literature using the term “safeguards” in
combination with the terms “REDD+”, “forests”, “natural resources”, “Indigenous
Peoples”, and “Local communities”.
• Snowballed for additional references and literature concerning safeguards in
other natural resource and agricultural sectors was considered where relevant.
• Found gaps in the literature - need greater empirical research on the
operationalization of REDD+ safeguards including on the ability of historically
marginalized groups to meaningfully participate and share in benefits.
• Based on the key rights concerns in the literature we reviewed safeguards
under 11 guidelines/standards for RBPs/VCMs.
https://www.cifor.org/knowledge/publicatio
n/8376

5. • Considerable variation in their underlying objectives, their formulation, and the extent and effectiveness of their implementation.
• Safeguards are conceptualized and articulated in different ways, as:
 Mitigative - bulwarks against the impacts of interventions; e.g., prevent forced evictions, resettle & compensate (“do no harm”);
 Promotive - means to achieve sustainable development outcomes; e.g., promotion of participation incl FPIC, promotion of
accountability and transparency (“do good”);
 Transformative - mechanisms to catalyse transformation of communities; e.g., change tenure laws for greater security,
institutionalising community involvement in planning and decisions, develop benefit sharing with communities (“do better”).
• In practice, fail to require IP&LC involvement in initiatives’ full lifetime (design, implementation, monitoring); some require it in
implementation but normally without concrete indicators.
• Different conceptions of FPIC without clear guidelines or concrete indicators to monitor progress; different practices in the name of FPIC
• Very few require the recognition of, and respect for land & resource rights, when rights are not formally recognized under national law.
• Seldom require formal benefit-sharing mechanisms that are equitable, transparent & legally-binding; less require participatory design.
• Many standards have some sort of reporting requirement for safeguards, but do not always include clear indicators, less so
consequences for non-compliance and/or third-party verification.
Review - Findings

6. Review – Findings (guidelines and standards)

7. Safeguards: buzzword or transformational practice?
• The idea of transformative safeguards may be a contradiction; the reconfiguration of power relations that
transformation would require lie beyond the realm of safeguards as they are currently understood.
• Safeguards tend to assume subjects who require ‘safeguarding’ - stop short of conceptualizing IPs&LCs as
full, self-determined partners in initiatives concerning their lands.
• Progress towards ‘doing better’ will require greater effort, starting with a reconsideration of REDD+
proponents as duty bearers and communities as rights holders w/the capacities and mechanisms to hold the
former accountable.
• Further discussion at the UNFCCC level is needed to define whether safeguards should comply with a
minimum of ‘doing no harm’ or support transformative pathways by ‘doing better’.
• The demand side of carbon markets must recognise their role in supporting these transformative pathways
by demanding the same ambition.

8. https://www.cifor-icraf.org/gcs/research-themes/multilevel-governance/

9. cifor.org | worldagroforestry.org | globallandscapesforum.org | resilientlandscapes.org
The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) envision a more equitable world where forestry and
landscapes enhance the environment and well-being for all. CIFOR–ICRAF are CGIAR Research Centers.
cifor.org/gcs
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