Forest Carbon Partnership Facility

Forest Carbon Partnership Facility

Summary

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) is a World Bank multi-donor fund of governments and non-governmental entities, including private companies, and consists of two separate but complementary funding mechanisms, namely a Readiness Fund and a Carbon Fund. The FCPF was created to assist developing countries to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, enhance and conserve forest carbon stocks, and sustainably manage forests (REDD+). Launched in 2008, the FCPF works with 47 developing countries across the world and 17 donors.

Basic Description

Name of the Fund Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF)
Official Fund Website www.forestcarbonpartnership.org
Date Created
Date fund proposed: Initial discussions in 2006.
Date fund made operational: 25 June 2008*.

*The FCPF became operational upon the operational date of the Readiness Fund. The Carbon Fund became fully operational in May 2011.

Proposed Life of Fund Both the Readiness Fund and the Carbon Fund of the FCPF are established for operation through 2025.
Objectives The FCPF aims to:

  1. Provide financial and technical assistance to:
    • Assist eligible countries with their REDD+ efforts to achieve emission reductions from deforestation and/or forest degradation
    • Build recipient country capacity for benefitting from possible future systems with positive incentives for REDD+.
  2. Pilot an emissions reduction performance-based payment system for REDD+ activities, to ensure equitable benefit sharing and promote future large-scale positive incentives for REDD+
  3. Test ways within the REDD+ approach to conserve biodiversity and sustain or enhance livelihoods of local communities
  4. Disseminate the knowledge gained through the development and implementation of the FCPF and related proposals and programmes for readiness and emissions reductions.
Financial inputs and fund size In total the FCPF amounts to USD 1.3 billion:

  • The Readiness Fund: USD 400 million
  • The Carbon Fund: USD 900 million.

FCPF is supported by government and non-governmental entities, including private companies (required to make a minimum contribution of USD 5 million) and NGOs.

Readiness Fund Contributors:
European Commission, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, UK and USA.

Carbon Fund Contributors:
European Commission, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, UK, USA, BP Technology Ventures Inc., The Nature Conservancy.

All financial inputs can be attributed as official development assistance (ODA).

Activities Supported Activities supported by the FCPF:

  • The Readiness Fund helps prepare developing countries for participation in a future, large-scale, system of positive incentives for REDD+. This includes support for:
    • Developing national reference scenarios for REDD+
    • Adopting a national REDD+ strategy that reduces emissions, conserves biodiversity and enhances the livelihoods of forest-dependent Indigenous Peoples and other forest dwellers
    • Designing and implementing accurate measurements, monitoring and verification systems to enable reporting on emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
  • The Carbon Fund provides payments for verified emission reductions from REDD+ programmes in countries that have made considerable progress towards REDD+ readiness. Assistance is divided into four main categories:
    • General Economic Policies and Regulations (taxation, subsidies, rural credit, certification, law enforcement)
    • Forest Policies and Regulations (taxation, subsidies, certification, concession regimes, securing land tenure and land rights, forest law, governance and enforcement, zoning, protected areas, payments for environmental services (PES))
    • Forest Management (forest fires, reduced impact logging, reforestation)
    • Rural Development (community development, rural electrification, community forestry).

Administrating Organization

Secretariat or Administrative Unit The World Bank provides secretariat services through a Facility Management Team. The team has three core functions:

  1. Administering the Funds
  2. Making proposals to the FCPF Participants Committee
  3. Providing country advisory services and REDD+ methodological support.
Trustee The World Bank is the permanent trustee.

Fund Finance and Access Modalities

Conditions and Eligibility Requirements Only developing countries that are members of the World Bank can participate in the FCPF. Eligibility for accessing the FCPF is not restricted to ODA countries. Currently, the FCPF has 47 country participants.

Conditions for participation in the Readiness Fund

  1. REDD+ Country eligibility
    • An eligible REDD+ country is:
      1. A borrowing member state of the IBRD or IDA; and
      2. Located in the tropical area or sub-tropical area
  2. Relevance of Country in the REDD+ context
    • Priority should be given to countries with the following characteristics:
      1. Significant forest area and carbon stock;
      2. High importance of forests in the national economy; and
      3. High current or projected deforestation or forest degradation

Conditions for participation in the Carbon Fund
A few countries that have successfully participated in the Readiness Fund may be selected, on a voluntary basis, to participate in the Carbon Fund.

Accessing the Fund
Access Modalities – The following criteria are considered:

  1. The extent of programme ownership by the government and relevant stakeholders, coherence with national or sectoral strategies, and feasibility to reduce deforestation and forest degradation
  2. The need to balance experiences and learning across different continents and across the world’s main forest biomes
  3. The approaches that can contribute to the learning objective of the FCPF.
Financial Instruments – The Readiness Fund is grant-based. Within the Carbon Fund, funds are delivered in exchange for emission reductions (results-based finance).
Accreditation process – There is no formal accreditation process for implementing partners. An eligible country can directly authorise an entity to act on its behalf in submitting a proposal for funding support.

Approved readiness support services are provided to countries through delivery partners (the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)).

Participation in the Readiness Fund

  1. An Eligible REDD+ Country submits through its authorised representative or by another entity authorised to act on its behalf, a Readiness Preparation Proposal Idea Note to the Facility Management Team.
  2. Upon approval by the Participants Committee, the Eligible REDD+ Country enters into a REDD+ Country Participation Agreement with the Trustee of the Readiness Fund.
  3. The Trustee of the Readiness Fund may enter into one or more grant agreements to fund a Readiness Preparation Proposal (RPP) by a REDD+ Country Participant.

The milestones of Readiness are available at: https://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/sites/fcp/files/2020/Feb/RF.JPG

Participation in the Carbon Fund
A few countries that have successfully participated in the Readiness Fund may be selected, on a voluntary basis, to participate in the Carbon Fund. Countries that have made considerable progress towards REDD+ readiness submit programme proposals that are assessed according to the following criteria:

  • Potential for generating high quality sustainable emissions reductions and social and environmental benefits
  • Scale of implementation
  • Consistency with emerging compliance standards under the UNFCCC and other regimes
  • Potential to generate learning value for the FCPF and other participants
  • Clear and transparent ‘benefit sharing’ mechanisms with broad community support
  • Transparent stakeholder consultations.

Summary of the Carbon Fund process is available at: https://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/sites/fcp/files/2020/Feb/CF.JPG

Overview of implementing entities – The implementing entities include national government agencies (e.g. Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, Nicaraguan Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources) and the IBRD.

The list of actual implementing entities is not available.

The World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are delivery partners under the Readiness Fund and responsible for providing REDD+ readiness support to distinct countries.

Nature of recipient country involvement – The FCPF respects recipient countries’ national policies and sovereign rights to manage their own natural resources. Recipient countries’ determine specific strategy options and the manner in which to use the Readiness Mechanism (to prepare for REDD) or the Carbon Mechanism (to reduce GHG emissions). The countries are given autonomy to individually prepare and submit proposals to the Facility under both mechanisms.
Allocation criteria – N/A
Safeguards, Gender and Indigenous Peoples
Safeguards – The FCPF Readiness Fund delivery partners are expected to follow the World Bank’s overarching safeguard policies, which fall under the following relevant categories: environmental assessments; natural habitats; forests; physical cultural resources, involuntary resettlement; and Indigenous Peoples.

The FCPF Readiness Fund has adopted a so-called ‘Common Approach‘ for addressing social and environmental safeguards which provides a common platform for risk management and quality assurance for the REDD+ readiness preparation process among multiple delivery partners. The approach is fully aligned with the World Bank’s applicable policies and procedures on environmental and social safeguards, disclosure of information, and accountability mechanisms.

The FCPF has produced joint ‘Programme Guidelines on Stakeholder Engagement in REDD+’ with the UN-REDD programme, and also requires adherence to its guidance on disclosure of information.

The safeguards that are put in place aim to ensure that REDD+ activities take into account a range of policies and rights relevant to conservation, stakeholders, and their access to sustainable livelihoods. These safeguards include a Safeguard Information System, a Strategic Environment and Social Assessment and an Environmental and Social Management Framework.

Gender – The World Bank’s gender strategy applies. The FCPF is committed to implement programmes that “seek to establish pathways that enhance and recognise women as transformational agents in the management and conservation of forests.” To achieve this goal, the fund works with countries to design and implement REDD+ readiness programmes that ensure women are partners in all activities related to climate finance. In addition, FCPF activities aim to strengthen reporting on the gender components of initiatives. The FCPF supports three areas of gender-focused activities:

  1. Designing programmes with gender awareness,
  2. Gender-responsive forest pilots,
  3. Building evidence, data and knowledge on gender awareness.

In addition, the FCPF has developed several gender guidance documents, including on gender integration in Carbon Fund Emissions-Reduction Programmes (ER-P), with corresponding in several countries including Costa Rica, Ghana, Lao PDR, Nepal, and Uganda.

Indigenous Peoples – FCPF aligns with the World Bank Environmental and Social Framework’s Standards 7 and 10 which require that meaningful consultation is conducted with Indigenous people groups. The FCPF endorses the notion that “where there are Indigenous Peoples present, forests tend to be better protected”. This is the reason why FCPF considers the expansion and protection of tribal land rights as being one of the most cost-effective ways to protect forests and sequester carbon. The FCPF Capacity Building Programme for Forest-Dependent Indigenous Peoples and Southern Civil Society Organisation (CBP) is a specific fund of USD 9.9 million that works with forest-dependent communities to increase their understanding of REDD+ and their engagement in REDD+.

Fund Governance

Decision Making Structure The FCPF is characterised by a governance structure that gives equal weight to developing and industrialised countries. The Participants Committee and the Participants Assembly are at the core of FCPF Governance. These governing bodies comprise representative from 47 developing countries (18 in Africa, 18 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 11 in Asia-Pacific), 17 donor participants, and active observers from northern and southern Indigenous Peoples, civil society and women’s organisations, as well as several international delivery partners.

The FCPF governance structure consists of a:

  • Participants Committee;
  • Participants Assembly:
  • Carbon Fund Participants Committee;
  • Facility Management Team;
  • Trustee of the Readiness Fund;
  • Trustee of the Carbon Fund; and
  • One or more Ad Hoc Technical Advisory Panels.

Participants Committee
The Participants Committee is the managerial body responsible for overseeing and facilitating operations of the FCPF. It meets twice a year to review submissions and select new participant countries, as well as approve funding allocations, rules of procedure, budgets and new methodologies. The Committee consists of 28 members (14 REDD+ Country Participants and 14 members collectively from Donor Participants and Carbon Fund Participants) and each member is entitled to one vote. Decisions are made by consensus but should efforts to reach consensus fail, a two thirds majority of members present and voting will suffice.

Participants Assembly
The Participants Assembly meets annually to elect the Participants Committee and provides oversight and guidance to the Participants Committee. Primarily a forum for information exchange and knowledge sharing, it is attended by participants from the Carbon Fund, eligible REDD+ countries and donor countries. To overturn decisions of the Participants Committee, a minimum of two-thirds majority from REDD+ Country Participants and two-thirds collective majority from Donor Participants and Carbon Fund Participants is required.

The Carbon Fund Participants Committee
The Carbon Fund Participants Committee makes decisions on specific carbon transactions.

Facility Management Team
The Facility Management Team is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the FCPF.

Ad Hoc Technical Advisory Panels
One or more Ad Hoc Technical Advisory Panels may be established by FCPF’s governance bodies (Participants Committee or the Facility Management Team, etc.) for the purpose of securing technical advice and information. Each Ad Hoc Technical Advisory Panel is independent and impartial.

Accountability Mechanisms Progress on the implementation of FCPF programmes is monitored through the Readiness Fund Dashboard and the Carbon Fund Dashboard which are regularly updated and provide a detailed overview of the status of implementation and commentary on implementation issues.

In May 2019, the FCPF adopted an updated programme-level Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. This framework includes:

  1. a revised FCPF results framework (revised impact, outcome and output statements, and revised indicators);
  2. an indicator-by-indicator overview and reporting guidance (rationale for indicators, data sources, measurement approaches, reporting responsibilities);
  3. a revised progress reporting templates;
  4. an outline of options for future FCPF evaluations.

The Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PP) template includes a section for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the R-PPs at the country level, which requires countries to design a monitoring and evaluation framework. The template advises that locally-based M&E can feed into M&E at the national level. ‘The M&E framework would monitor each component of the R-PP, such as organisation and consultations, preparation of REDD+ strategy, development of a national reference scenario, design of systems for national forest monitoring and information on safeguards, and schedules and budgets’. However, the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group 2012 review suggests that ‘the R-PPs do not appear to allocate adequate resources for M&E’.

Independent Evaluations
FCPF programmes have been evaluated in 2011 and 2016. The first independent programme evaluation was commissioned by the Participants Committee of the FPCF and was conducted by the Nordic Agency for Development and Ecology in 2011. They found that “since its inception in 2008, FCPF has made significant progress in meeting the first and last objectives (building in-country capacity and disseminating lessons learned in readiness), but less progress has been made on the two other objectives as would be expected at this early stage (piloting a performance-based system of payments; enhancing livelihoods & conserving biodiversity)”.

The second independent evaluation was led by Indufor Team in 2016. The main findings on relevance are:

  1. “The FCPF continued to add value to REDD Countries through its common readiness framework and structured approach to REDD Readiness,
  2. In some countries, the FCPF Delivery Partners had not integrated REDD+ agenda into their country engagement strategies even if they supported REDD+ through the FCPF,
  3. Most Financial Contributors had common strategic priorities to which the FCPF had responded appropriately”.

Complaint mechanisms
The World Bank’s applicable policies and procedures on grievance and accountability mechanisms apply through the ‘Common Approach’ for FCPF Readiness Fund delivery partners and regulate the establishment of FCPF related grievance and redress mechanisms. FCPF has a country/programme feedback and grievance redress mechanism. Stakeholders (including geographically, culturally or economically-isolated or excluded groups) can use this mechanism during the preparation phase and the operation stage to address their grievances.

In addition, affected communities can file complaints to the World Bank Inspection Panel when they feel that FCPF programmes cause harm to people or the environment.

Participation of Observers and Stakeholders Forest dwelling and Indigenous Peoples were not consulted prior to the launch of the FCPF in 2007. However, the World Bank responded to criticisms of this consultation failure by organising a series of three regional consultations with representatives of forest dwellers and Indigenous People in Kathmandu, Bujumbura and La Paz. As a result of these consultations, it was decided that representatives of Indigenous Peoples would be included on each of the FCPF Technical Advisory Panels and that they are fully consulted in the formulation of national REDD+ strategies.

Stakeholders participate in FCPF’s core decision-making process via the Participants Committee and the Participants Assembly where they are invited as observers. For the Participants Assembly, representatives of relevant International Organisations, relevant Non-governmental Organisations, Forest-Dependent Indigenous Peoples and Forest Dwellers and relevant private sector entities, may be invited by the Facility Management Team to attend Annual Participant Assembly Meetings as observers.

In the Participants Committee, one representative each from relevant International Organisations, Non-governmental Organisations, Forest-Dependent Indigenous Peoples and Forest Dwellers, private sector entities, the UN-REDD Programme and UNFCCC Secretariat, is invited to attend the meetings of the Participants Committee as observers. These representatives do not have voting rights, but may express their views on issues under discussion.

The full list of official observers can be found at: https://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/official-observers

Transparency and Information Disclosure The Readiness Fund and each of the tranches of the Carbon Fund have separate records and ledger accounts. The Fund Trustees provide the Participants with all financial information relating to receipts, disbursements and fund balance via the World Bank’s Trust Funds Donor Centre secure website. Disbursement information is also made available in the FCPF Annual Report and on the FCPF website.

In-depth details about individual funded projects are publicly available at: https://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/countries

Prior to each Annual Meeting of the Participants Assembly, the Facility Management Team provides annual progress reports to Participants regarding the activities of the Facility for the previous Fiscal Year.

Additionally, detailed guidance notes on information disclosure for FCPF documents exit separately for the Readiness Fund and the Carbon Fund.

They stipulate for the Facility Management Team to make numerous documents available to the Participants and to the public, including:

  • Readiness Fund Grant Agreements, reports on implementation of Grant Agreements and any other information submitted by REDD+ Country Participants;
  • Reports and conclusions of the Participants Committee;
  • Information on Emission Reductions Programmes selected by the Carbon Fund Participants;
  • Where appropriate, findings and advice from the Ad Hoc Technical Advisory Panels;
  • Information on good practices and lessons of experience learned through operation of the Facility; and
  • Any other information as deemed appropriate by the Facility Management Team.
Other Issues Raised FCPF Progress
An external evaluation of the FCPF in 2011 confirmed that the FCPF has made significant progress, specifically in building in-country capacity and disseminating lessons learned. However, the report was critical of the pace of financial commitments and disbursements from the Readiness Fund, the inflexibility of rates to adjust to country needs, the lack of in-country procurement capacity and the limited country level involvement of World Bank staff.

Non-government Stakeholder Consultation and Participation
The FCPF was criticised for its failure to adequately consult non-government stakeholders prior to its public launch in 2007. It responded to these criticisms (see above) however failure to facilitate full consultation and participation of Indigenous and Local Peoples is a recurring criticism.

Human Rights, Indigenous Rights and Traditional/Customary Rights
In a report by the Forest Peoples Programme and FERN, the World Bank was criticised for failing to uphold commitments on human rights. The FCPF Draft Charter fails to include any safeguards for indigenous rights, and there are concerns that the process and content of FCPF ignores traditional and customary rights, implying that all control of forest lands rests with governments.

Project/Programme Failings
Civil society groups, including Rainforest Foundation and Global Witness have criticised the Peru R-PP for presenting an incomplete picture of the drivers of deforestation and governance issues, specifically in relation to the on-going conflicts between indigenous groups and industrial logging companies and mining concessionaires. The FCPF process in Cameroon sparked similar concerns, glossing over critical land tenure, carbon rights, and benefit sharing issues.

FCPF’s Safeguard Approach
The Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL) advocates a human rights-based approach to REDD+ safeguards that is consistent with international human rights obligations and centred on a “do no harm” approach to interventions. It has criticised the FCPF’s safeguard approach for not being sufficiently rights-based, because the World Bank’s policies and procedures do not fully reflect existing human rights obligations. On the other hand, CIEL approves the FCPF’s explicit recognition of the need for a grievance and redress mechanism for instances when REDD+ activities have unintended negative consequences on local stakeholders.