In September 2008, the global UN REDD Programme was launched aiming to assist tropical forest countries with establishing a fair, equitable and transparent REDD regime. Indonesia has been selected as one of the nine pilot countries for the initial ‘Quick Start’ phase. The quick start will be funded by the Government of Norway as part of Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative which was announced during the UNFCCC conference at Bali in 2007.

The proposed joint program aims to facilitate the Indonesian government to timely develop a REDD architecture that will allow a fair, equitable and transparent REDD implementation significantly contributing to a sustainable reduction of forestry related greenhouse gas emissions.

REDD is already re-shaping the Indonesian forestry landscape. Around 20 voluntary projects are in various stages of development. Some of these have been launched officially and are linked to high profile financing institutions. Despite some setbacks, interest remains significant. In total, over $3 million is proposed for REDD development. The scope and aim vary and worries exist that this ultimately leads to different approaches for setting reference baseline, monitoring tools and payment schemes. This may ultimately undermine Government of Indonesia (GoI)’s efforts to move towards a market based nested approach to REDD^[1] as seems to be the preferred direction from GOI. A recent REDD workshop allowed project proponents to present their plans which has led to significant interest.

Multi-stakeholder participation in REDD is of critical importance to REDD readiness. Recognizing the importance to do so, the government initially has been working through the IFCA multi-stakeholder alliance. IFCA organized and streamlined stakeholder input. Amongst others, this resulted in an initial outline of what was called a REDD supply chain. Furthermore, subject matter related analysis were conducted which fed into a final report outlining the Indonesian REDD strategy. This process still has to be finalized.

Provincial governments are developing policies and shown interest in developing REDD as an alternative for forest development. These efforts are hampered by misunderstanding and insufficient alignment with national level processes. While these initiatives need support, better communication between province governments and the Ministry of Forestry is essential to make REDD successful longer term. The key risk is that if agreements are made at local level which are in conflict with national level policies, early investments based on these commitment will be disappointing for investors which will impacts on future market development.

The Objective of the UN-REDD Indonesia Programme is “to assist the GoI in attaining REDD-Readiness”. In order to secure this Objective, three Outcomes with subsequent outputs and activities will be pursued:

Outcome 1: Strengthened multi-stakeholder participation and consensus at national level 

Output 1.1 (UNDP): Consensus on key issues for national REDD policy development

Output 1.2 (UNDP): REDD lessons learned

Output 1.3 (UNEP): Communications Program

Outcome 2 Successful demonstration of establishing a REL, MARV and fair payment systems based on the national REDD architecture

Output 2.1 (FAO) Improved capacity and methodology design for forest carbon inventory within a Monitoring, Assessment, Reporting and Verification System (MARV), including sub-national pilot implementation

Output 2.2 (FAO) Reference emissions level (REL)

Output 2.3 (UNDP) Harmonized fair and equitable payment mechanism at provincial level

Output 2.4 (UNEP): Toolkit for priority setting towards maximizing potential Carbon-benefits and incorporating co-benefits, such as biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation under MDG

Outcome 3: Capacity established to implement REDD at decentralized levels

Output 3.1 (UNDP) Capacity for spatial socio-economic planning incorporating REDD at the district level

Output 3.2 (UNDP) Empowered local stakeholders are able to benefit from REDD

Output 3.3 (UNDP) Multi-stakeholder-endorsed District plans for REDD implementation

For more information on the programmatic and techical aspects of this programme, please see the UN-REDD website.

^[1] A. Angelsen (ed), 2008. Moving Ahead with REDD, CIFOR: Bogor 156 p.