AT its third meeting of the Participants’ Committee (PC) of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) in Montreaux, Switzerland from June 15 to 18, the Word Bank approved Guyana’s readiness plan (R-Plan).

The PC is the governing body of the FCPF and is made up of both donor and developing countries’ representatives.

The FCPF was created in 2007 as a mechanism to support country readiness for the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) programme, a topic currently under negotiation at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

If REDD schemes are approved at the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December, REDD countries would theoretically be eligible for payments from the industrialised countries to support forest conservation.

The R-Plan (or “REDD readiness”, in World Bank lingo) entails developing a reference scenario of the country’s historical and projected deforestation patterns; a strategy to reduce deforestation and conserve standing natural forest (in Guyana’s case, the Low-Carbon Development Strategy – LCDS); and developing a system for monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of emission reductions, all of which will need to be in compliance with evolving international standards to make the country eligible for REDD payments.

At the meeting, there was significant debate within the PC but the political pressure to move the process forward won the day. Also approved was the R-Plan for Panama, with approval pending for Indonesia.

R-Plan grants amount to a maximum of US$3.6 million, which includes a $200,000 grant which can be provided up front to support R-Plan development.

Both donor and REDD country representatives on the PC expressed concern that if the PC didn’t approve the plans now, there would be little progress to show in Copenhagen in December, undercutting the ability of nations advocating UNFCCC adoption of REDD to point to real on the ground advances.

In order to help the PC make a decision on whether to approve a R-Plan, the World Bank has assembled a Technical Advisory Panel (or TAP) of experts on forest issues, the recipient country, and at least one expert on indigenous issues, for each R-Plan.

Weak governance of forests is an issue in the majority of REDD countries. However, Guyana and Panama are among those with relatively strong institutional frameworks.

The approval of the R-Plans also places the spotlight on the governments of Guyana, Panama and Indonesia, who, as the first countries to formally begin REDD readiness under the auspices of the World Bank, will be carefully scrutinised. The experiences of these pilot countries will be used to assess whether the FCPF process is capable of facilitating sustained and effective engagement with civil society and indigenous peoples, and of producing high quality plans for reducing deforestation that are credible both nationally and internationally.