Three days of multi-stakeholder and multi-level deliberations that ended on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 in Abuja enabled the validation of the draft Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PP) document, which will be submitted on Wednesday July 31, 2013 to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).
About 60 representatives of forest communities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), investors, federal and interested state government officials, technical experts, project managers, academia and the media involved in the process since its inception in 2009 brainstormed on the design of the nation’s REDD+ policy, as well as institutional and methodological aspects.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Environment, Taiye Haruna, who inaugurated the meeting on behalf of the Minister of Environment (Hadiza Mailafia), assured participants of government’s commitment to REDD+ as an important component of the national development agenda.
“Today marks another milestone in this epic journey as Nigeria gets set to expand its reach on the programme by accessing the FCPF. Having approached the FCPF since 2009, the organisation in November 2012 invited Nigeria to prepare and submit a draft R-PP for its consideration,” he said onTuesday.
Coordinator of the REDD+ Programme, Salisu Dahiru, declared at the close of the consultation: “We have examined the key elements of the draft R-PP document in public discussions and thematic groups. We are pleased with the structure, policy thrusts, strategy options and implementation framework of the draft R-PP.
“We acknowledge the efforts and consultation work undertaken in the last couple of months to prepare the draft R-PP in order to submit on time, by 31st July 2013.
“We confirm that broad-based multi-stakeholder and multi-level consultation and validation of the draft R-PP document were held. We therefore confirm our support for the submission of the Draft R-PP document to the FCPF accordingly.”
If the proposal turns out successful, Nigeria will end up accessing a grant of up to $3.6 million from the FCPF.
A couple of years ago, Nigeria accessed a $4 million grant from the UN-REDD, giving birth to the nation’s first REDD+ Readiness Programme that is being implemented within a three-year span (commencing from late 2012), allowing Nigeria to craft the REDD+ mechanism through an innovative, two-track approach consisting of actions at both federal and state levels.
At the federal level, the programme will create basic technical capacities, develop strategic and policy frameworks for REDD+, and support the alignment of the country with international climate change and environmental negotiations and agreements. At the state level, the programme will conduct strategy-development and demonstration activities on REDD+ in Cross River State, which has shown a determined political commitment for green development as well as being home to more than 50 percent of the tropical high forest remaining in the country. The best practice and lessons learned in Cross River will be used to roll out REDD+ in other states across Nigeria.
Salisu explained why the nation is seeking the FCPF financing: “In view of the scale of Nigeria and the complexity of developing a REDD+ system for the entire country, which has a federal structure with 36 states, the UN-REDD support needs to be coupled with additional financial and technical assistance, notably to reinforce the federal-level REDD+ capacities and to expand REDD+ to new states (using the best practice, models, policies and measures that Cross River State will develop and test). Nigeria is a member of the FCPF and FCPF co-financing seems necessary for the country to further its REDD+ process.”
REDD+ implies Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. Just like the UN-REDD (United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries), the FCPF is a window to finance the REDD+ programme. The UN-REDD is a collaboration involving the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
