Comments on Cote d Ivoire s Advanced Draft ERPD. December 2018

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1 Comments on Cote d Ivoire s Advanced Draft ERPD December 2018 Carbon Fund Participants (CFPs) commend the Cote d Ivoire team for presenting an advanced draft ER Program Document. Cote d Ivoire has planned for an ambitious program with a wide range of sectoral activities related to forestry, agriculture, and agroforestry and also involving many different stakeholders. However, the program design seems to be missing a clear political vision and commitment from the government. While important work has been done, there are several sections as also illustrated by the TAP which still require substantial work. There is a perceived risk resulting from overreliance on existing donor-funded initiatives and existing private sector engagement but limited embedding in broader public sector policies and formalised longer term strategies in the forest/land-use sector. CFPs encourage the Cote d Ivoire team to take into account the comments below as it works to finalize the ERPD. Program Area The Program Area follows regional boundaries (2nd subdivision of Côte d'ivoire) instead of administrative districts (1st subdivision of Côte d'ivoire. Please elaborate why the ERPD proposes to follow regional boundaries, and not district boundaries. In addition, please explain why the remaining forests in the Montagnes District (Carbon Stock west of Man, north of Program area) are not included in the ERP Area, as well as forests eastern to the Mount Peko National Park, directly adjacent to the ERP Area. CFPs recognize that the ERP seeks to reduce pressure on Taï National Park, the most important forest in West Africa, but we would like CDI to consider including these important forest remains into the ERP area to reduce leakage risk and improve consistency. Carbon Accounting Deforestation: The ERPD assumes that deforestation only occurs in dense forest. It is evident that in 2000, degraded forest did exist (data used to detect degradation should show that), hence, part of the deforestation between 2000 and 2015 should have taken place in degraded forests, and hence use a different EF. Not using a different EF leads to an overestimation of Emissions. Côte d'ivoire should improve this approach, use at least 4 different EF for deforestation, according to forest type (ombrophilous/mesophilic) and density (degraded or non-degraded). Describe the approach and demonstrate the capacity of the MRV unit to differentiate deforestation from temporarily unstocked forest. Evidence is needed on how deforested areas can be differentiated from temporary unstocked forest, or alternatively, evidence

2 Degradation: to support the ERPD assumption that no deforested area will ever reconvert to forest during the Monitoring Period. Degradation was not included in the FREL submitted to UNFCCC, and hence did not undergo a technical assessment. In current degradation monitoring as presented in the ERPD, there is no separation between the ombrophilous and mesophilic forests. Côte d'ivoire should differentiate for degradation according to the forest type, and use different EFs. Not using different EFs could lead to an overestimation of Emissions. The ERPD informs that Côte d'ivoire plans to improve the activity data concerning forest degradation has been developed and should lead to a better estimation of forest degradation by the first half of What does the Methodology the country is working on look like? How it is consistent with the method used to estimate the RL? Does Cote d Ivoire plan to update its national FREL submitted to the UNFCCC when new national wide data will be available? Thresholds used to determine degradation are unclear. In Table 12 it says: Forest area with a coverage rate greater than 50% in 2000 has been considered as forest degradation and has increased to a coverage rate of between [30-50%] in But in Annex 4, it refers to coverages of 50-70% and %. In another section it states that dense forest has canopy cover >70%, and degraded forest a canopy cover of 30-70% cover (Tableau 3 : Annex 4). Provide supporting evidence to justify the estimated value of the EF for degradation activity. Evidence is needed to demonstrate that the same EFs used in the setting of the reference level will be used for the monitoring period, and to confirm that the EFs used are IPCC tier 2. Other assumptions/data: The TAP comments on different EF (or an average weighted EF) depending on the conversion of Forest to other Land Uses should be taken into account. Review the assumption that all deforested areas are converted to cocoa plantations (when calculating EFs) or demonstrate that it is conservative to assume 100% conversion to cocoa (i.e. by showing that rubber, palm oil or other land uses have a lower carbon stock than cocoa plantations). The tables in p.70/71 mention Mosaic cultivation-forest. Is this the same class as what is referred to as the dynamic class? Managing and reducing uncertainty: Systematic EF errors: clarify what share of deforestation is occurring in primary forest and what share is in degraded forest, for the purpose of EF estimations. Develop a plan to minimize random errors and other uncertainties to the extent practical. 2

3 Reference level: Explain how the processes for elaborating the ERP RL and the national FREL are aligned. Provide further information on the institutional linkages between the two levels. Same comment regarding consistency with the GHG inventory. Please strengthen the reversals risk mitigation strategy, in particular for possible shortfalls in institutional capacity of key ERP implementing agencies. Safeguards It appears that several of the processes needed to get to an operational Safeguards system are still very early stages even when considering that a fully operational system is not expected at this stage of the process. According to the ERPD, Safeguards Instruments were planned to be validate in November/December events. How did the validation go? Do you see the stakeholders empowered to make use of the instruments? Are the instruments visible on the SEP-REDD+ HP now? According to the ERPD, the Safeguards Information System is already developed and the submission of the first Safeguards Summary to the UNFCCC is scheduled for December Did this submission happen? Did the Report undergo a public consultation process? Information on how the ER Program meets the World Bank social and environmental safeguards is currently missing. The final ERPD should include final versions of the safeguard documents and instruments that have been subject to stakeholder consultations and then publicly disclosed. We welcome that the FGRM relies on customary committees and systems for grievance management already existing at the different scales. According to the ERPD (from November 16), the FGRM will be submitted to the approval of CN-REDD+ during the third quarter of Did this happen? Could you present a roadmap for the approbation and final operationalization of the FGRM in the ERP - Region? How will the FGRM be articulated with programs that are being implemented? Will there, or has there been, publicly available announcement of when the FGRM will be available including the relevant information on how to file? The ERPD briefly mentions a Resettlement Action Plan. Could you present the nature and purpose of this document? Also, the ERPD within its enabling activities proposes to apply incentives for populations that have recently arrived in the region to resettle in the center of Côte d Ivoire. Could you elaborate on these topics? Please share with CFPs the Resettlement Policy Framework and the Resettlement Action Plan. Please ensure that the assessment of existing FGRM that was carried out is made public. Describe how the ER Program will have access to adequate expertise and resources for the implementation of the FGRM. 3

4 Governance There are a lot of Ministries and organisations identified as being linked to the ER-P, which is positive. However, it is not clear how they and their activities will intersect. Will there be some high-level structure/ forum to facilitate coordination and communication? We acknowledge the progress of institutional capacity regarding REDD+ implementation at a national level. However, regarding the risk assessment of institutional capacity for implementation and sustainability, taking into account low financial commitment of government institutions in the implementation of the ERPD, we would suggest a more realistic risk assessment. The mandate of SEP-REDD should not be restricted to the coordination of the ERP. SEP-REDD has a national mandate to ensure the coordination of the implementation of the REDD+ Strategy. It is essential, to ensure the good functioning of the unit and coherence of action, that its activities ERP-related be integrated in the overall work plan and structure of the unit under the management of the REDD+ coordinator, and not separated through dedicated project structures. Similarly, given the multiplicity of projects and activities in the ERP area, the lack of coordination and poor capacity of decentralized services, it would be important that local institutional arrangements put in place for the ERP, such as the REDD+ regional committees, serve as coordination instruments for all initiatives, not only World Bank projects. Financial Planning It would be helpful to see a diagram showing the financial flows. Since all investments in the planned for the ER-P are already being financed by the PROFIAB, ISLA, Cacao Life, Initiative Cacao et Forêts (ICC) projects and the Forest Investment Program (FIP), please elaborate the value-add, and plans for, the ER-P payments. The intervention on agroforestry & agriculture intensification represents 26% of total costs. Will there be sufficient resource to cover all the other activities comprehensively? The funds presented in the ERPD as current situation of ER-P advanced financing are mainly from past engagement. Some programs end 2018 or early 2019, and some programs presented have a broader focus than the ERP area, hence only part of the overall budget can be attributed to the ERP. Please present a realistic updated financial plan with a focus on the proposed accounting period. Program Design The Government of Côte d'ivoire announced zero-deforestation cocoa from 2017 during the United Nations Summit on climate change in New York in According to the ERPD, this has not been achieved yet. How are the advances towards reaching this optimistic targets? What are the main barriers? 4

5 The ERPD states that as regards financing and the estimation of expected results, all investments in the region planned for the ER-P are already being financed by the PROFIAB, ISLA, Cacao Life, Initiative Cacao et Forêts (ICC) projects and the Forest Investment Program (FIP), as explained in section 6.2 of the ERPD. They should be responsible for all of the projected results in terms of the program s emission reductions. Does the Government of Côte d'ivoire really see the responsibility to achieve the projected Emission Reductions solely within the international cooperation and private companies? What is the legal status (law? Decree?) of the Zero Deforestation Agriculture policy? Is the policy funded by public finance? The ERPD in its enabling activities under Improved Management of Classified Forests describes the intention of a reclassification of classified forests. Does CIV plan to compensate areas for forests reclassified to other land uses, namely increasing forest land in other strategic important areas? What approach will CDI take to guide the reclassification, what criteria will it take into account? Please include in the ERPD the results of the recent report on the technical and economic/financial feasibility of the proposed agroforestry alternatives for the smallholder (cocoa) farmers. This will be crucial, since the principle activity both in terms of budget allocation and expected emissions reductions is sustainable management for cash crops. Please provide financial analysis that demonstrates the benefit for private companies and smallholders of adopting sustainable practices, as evidence for expected behavioural change. This should include non-carbon benefits associated with these activities. Barriers to REDD+ are explained in section 4.2 it would be valuable to directly link/ signpost the inventions to these, to show how interventions overcome these challenges. For the key drivers of deforestation and degradation forest encroachment by cocoa and rubber producers, timber and fuelwood extraction provide an analysis of the relevant regulatory provisions supporting, or running counter to, the various policy instruments as well as a critical review of compliance and enforcement. Describe the regulatory context for ER Program measures in support of timber plantations and a switch from classic timber concessions to a more sustainable type. It is overall unclear in the document which ongoing projects will be responsible for which results. All investments in the ERP area are supposed to come from ongoing donor programs, but it is unclear how the program will interact with these actors as well as be able to influence some of the future investments that might be made. Some activities have no clearly identified donors/funders. A more detailed account of ongoing project objectives and expected results would be helpful. Agroforestry: the project relies on the assumption that cocoa intensification can be achieved through plantation regeneration. Yet the Coffee-Cocoa Board suspended the distribution of improved generic material for replantation in light of the current overproduction crisis. The ERP 5

6 is not taking into account the current macro-economic context and should propose measures to mitigate related risks. Fuelwood plantation: although it is acknowledged that sustainable value chains need to be put in place, the ERP doesn t propose any way forward apart from supporting planting investments. Yet there are practically no wood energy operators in the area at this stage, so it would require dedicated activities to help structure that supply chain. PES approach: PES schemes are planned to be used on the basis of the carbon performance of operators, i.e. on the environmental services provided (p.25). This is not necessarily coherent with other statements in the document, as well as the national PES guidelines, which foresee the use of PES to cover initial investment costs of zero-deforestation activities. In any case, the use of PES and support to agroforestry activities needs to be based on sound economic analysis of the smallholder plantation and ensure that investment costs are covered until they can be compensated by additional revenues, otherwise the sustainability of the approach is not guaranteed. Lessons from the field and the Mondelez project are regularly shared through the national PES working group organized by SEP-REDD. The ERPD indicates that these [PES] contracts will be paid for based on carbon performance according to simplified indicators approximating carbon performance (approximation indicators, abbreviated to proxy indicators ). Could you elaborate on the monitoring scheme and different responsibilities? As PES will play an essential role in the implementation of the Benefit Sharing Plan, could you elaborate on eligibility criteria, in an environment with uncertain/unclear land titles, unclear land use rights, national and international migrants? Please show how the delays or reductions in land use revenues for participating farmers are taken into account under the planned PES scheme. Provide additional information on tenure relations and conflicts, if any, in Classified Forest and Protection Areas: Describe the key provisions and/or sections of the Forest Code and their impact for tenure holdings. Explain how customary land tenure titles are recognized, shaped or refuted by formal law requirements, and which communities (including indigenous communities, where relevant) and groups are most impacted. Clarify the specific issues raised by the TAP regarding plantations and other land use forms outside concessions in forest land as well as the terra nullius issue. Explain how and through what particular means the program will be of assistance to the land certification process. Describe what role the program proponents will have in the different activities (from delimitation to contractualization and SIF integration), i.e. what the specific input will be as well as the expected output. 6

7 Participation and Benefits sharing The vast majority of consultations and workshops were held in Abidjan, and the extent of community & local level consultations (especially in rural areas) is not clear. Please elaborate on this, and highlight where and how women/ marginalised groups were actively included. The annex 3 pp228 shows numerous workshops on different topics, part of the R-PP Process. There is no mention of any workshops or participatory spaces where the ERPD has been discussed. Several of the workshops have been several years ago and with clear focus on the national scale. Workshops mentioned in the ERPD are mainly from 2016; according to the list (section 5.1) there have not been any consultations on the ERPD with civil society (apart from the private sector). Apart from one workshop in Guiglo in September 2018, there have not been any consultations in the ERPD-Program Areas. Is there local ownership for the Program in the Region? How have the regional actors participated in the process so far? Would you consider the ERP a participatory project, backed by the major stakeholders in the region? What are the results of the regional and national consultations scheduled from 5 to 13 December? Is there enough time to include these results, as well as the remarks from the National REDD Committee, into a final version by 4 January? How will definition of carbon rights lead to the right incentives and avoid perverse outcomes? There is hardly any substantial information on benefit sharing this becomes particularly important even at this stage with the multitude of initiatives constituting the program activities, i.e. how do the initiatives benefit from successful program implementation, how is equitable benefit sharing assured across initiatives? Benefits sharing plan: The following issues will require further work prior to completion of the ER-PD: (i) scope of benefits; (ii) reward metrics; (iii) contribution level; (iv) scope of beneficiaries; and (v) mode of adoption and implementation. Scope of beneficiaries and investment focus: o More specific information on exactly what proportion of the Carbon Benefits would be going to each stakeholder group described, would be useful so that a clearer picture can be presented on who will benefit most from the program, especially from the carbon benefits. o Clarify whether all communities actively contributing or those bearing any costs have access to the benefit sharing arrangements. o For Protected Areas and Classified Forests, clarify the role of individuals and communities that do not fall into any of the categories of (as of yet recognized) beneficiaries. o Consider whether the strict reinvestment focus applied to some of the beneficiaries (e.g. agroforestry cooperatives), but not others (cf. logging companies) is warranted applying the core principles listed (equal access, in 7

8 o particular). Small-scale farmers, in particular, may require a more flexible spending focus than industrial-sized participants. Clarify what incentives will be developed and offered, and how these will be effective at changing individual behaviours Mode of adoption and implementation: o Clarify how the BSP will be formally adopted and/or agreed to by participants. Explain the various adoption practices for state and non-state actors. Gender: There appears to be very little in the ERPD related to the program s efforts to improve gender equality and empower women. There is also very little said about how the program will benefit Indigenous peoples and support their rights. More could be said about how improving tenure security will benefit women and other marginalized groups. Specific gender monitoring on participation was done during the consultation process, but this is not enough. A gender analysis of the program s activities should be carried out to determine what aspects could then be improved to promote and support gender equality and the empowerment of women. o The vulnerable or marginalized groups (women, young people, etc.) was identified as a category of stakeholders for the consultations, and inclusive consultations were carried out, but more could be said on how the program s activities will strive to be more inclusive as well. o Some of the proposed activities in the ERPD specifically refer to women s involvement; however, women should also be encouraged to participate in any of the other activities that are not traditionally considered to be women s work. All of the activities proposed could just as easily benefit and involve also women and youth and not only those few activities which have already been specifically linked to their involvement. Both men and women should be allowed and encouraged to participate in the various activities promoted by the program. Efforts could be made to increase women s participation also in decision making at all levels and in all of the various activities contemplated. Non-Carbon Benefits: Describe how the ER Program will generate and enhance priority Non-Carbon benefits, integrating the key findings of the 2017 study on the mapping of multiple REDD+ benefits. Describe stakeholder discussions on this topic held by the CIV REDD+ team. Explain how the monitoring of non-carbon benefits will be done in practice. 8

9 ER Transactions and Carbon Rights The ER Program Entity will need to demonstrate, prior to ERPA signature, its ability to transfer to the Carbon Fund Title to ERs, while respecting the land and resource tenure rights of the potential rights-holders, including Indigenous Peoples, in the Accounting Area. As it stands in the advance draft, the ability to transfer title to the Carbon Fund is not established. As the ERPD states, It shall be for the Ivorian government to decide whether the most appropriate categorization should be officially established in national law, or not, it is surprising that the ERPD includes an inconclusive discussion of this topic and offers a recommendation to the national government. We recommend to improve this section. Clarify which of the carbon rights scenarios is dictated by CIV law or, if there is discretion, what the process (including consultations) will be for selecting one of the scenarios and the required steps for implementation. If the finding is that the CIV legislator must adopt the envisaged future legislation prior to the implementation of the ER Program, this should be made clear, and the specific roadmap for adoption/implementation should be laid out. Further, in the ERPD there is a recommendation to have the same legal definition for all actors involved in REDD+ regarding carbon rights. Please elaborate on the process and status in defining carbon rights in this context (p106). 9