Challenges and prospects for REDD+ in Africa: desk review of REDD+ implementation in Africa - a GOFC-ACRENET synthesis

This report reviews the status of REDD+ implementation in Africa, identifying forest degradation as one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. The research lists current projects in Africa to build a database of REDD initiatives and their status of implementation. The main issues addressed are: the political and institutional challenges and prospects for REDD; the technical challenges and prospects for REDD; social and economic challenges; resource and funding issues; and performance monitoring/reporting metrics being developed. It highlights the risk in focusing only on the heavily forested Congo Basin area, instead of also addressing deforestation in non-forested ecosystems. Moreover, the magnitude and extent of forest cover change in Africa is less than in tropical America and south east Asia. Hence, the potential to reverse these trends may still be less challenging in Africa than in other parts of the world. This presents a real opportunity for forest investment.

Authors: C. Mbow
Publisher: Global Land Project, 2012