Additional Guidance on REDD+ Safeguards Information Systems

To obtain results-based finance for REDD+, developing country Parties should have in place a system for providing information on how safeguards are addressed and respected – a safeguards information system (SIS). Some guidance was provided on these systems, and Parties agreed that in Bonn in May 2012, SBSTA would consider the need for further guidance to “ensure transparency, consistency, comprehensiveness and effectiveness when informing on how all safeguards are addressed and respected and, if appropriate, to consider additional guidance” and report to COP18.2 They also agreed that a summary of information on how the safeguards are being addressed and respected should be provided periodically and in national communications by developing country Parties undertaking REDD+ activities, or through communication channels agreed by the COP, and tasked the Bonn SBSTA meeting with discussing the timing and frequency of the summaries. This briefing paper describes why such additional guidance would be useful.

The REDD+ Safeguards Information System Working Group has produced a briefing paper on safeguards information systems. The briefing was produced ahead of the climate meetings in May 2012 in Bonn. 

The REDD+ Safeguards Information System Working Group is a North-South group of civil society organisations and indigenous organisations working on REDD+, formed at a meeting in the Philippines at the end of March 2012. The group includes several members of the Accra Caucus. 

At COP17 in Durban, an agreement was reached that the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) would consider the need for further guidance to “ensure transparency, consistency, comprehensiveness and effectiveness when informing on how all safeguards are addressed and respected and, if appropriate, to consider additional guidance” and report to COP18, which will take place in Doha in December 2012. 

The briefing paper explains why additional guidance would be useful. It also proposes that before COP 18 in Doha parties and observers should be invited to make submissions on lessons and challenges as well as their views on the submission of summaries of information, and that an analytical paper is commissioned based on the submissions.

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