The United States Launches REDD+ Strategy

The U.S. Government is proud to announce the release of the United States' strategy to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and increase carbon sequestration by forests in developing countries. This is commonly referred to as REDD+.

This U.S. government-wide strategy outlines how the United States will allocate and invest the $1 billion dedicated for REDD+ announced by the Obama Administration in Copenhagen in December 2009 at the meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The strategy was developed through an interagency process facilitated by the White House National Security Council (NSC) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Two stakeholder meetings were held to collect information on private sector and civil society concerns and interests. USAID participated actively throughout the process and is proud of the significant contributions the Agency made to the strategy.

The strategy was created to guide budgetary decision making of the Administration and to guide programming design. It delineates criteria that feed into decisions about which countries the United States supports with bilateral programs. Because REDD+ assistance is a "whole of government" program, the strategy will help ensure all of the many U.S. government agencies work toward common objectives. In addition, the REDD+ strategy has been distributed to USAID field programs around the world to guide program design. It will also be useful in explaining U.S. government assistance priorities for climate change financing to USAID country counterparts and other partners.

We invite you to download and read the entire strategy, "Strategic Choices for United States Fast Start Financing for REDD+ (pdf, 390kb)." In addition, the Executive Summary is reproduced below.

For more information about USAID's climate change program, visit the USAID Global Climate Change webpage and the Sustainable Land Use and Forestry (i.e. REDD+) page.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

To help countries that put forward "ambitious REDD+¹ plans," the United States announced it would dedicate $1 billion² over the 2010-2012 timeframe as part of the U.S. contribution towards the "fast start financing" reflected in the Copenhagen Accord³. The United States supports REDD+ activities because they offer cost-effective opportunities to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions while providing other sustainable development benefits.

Use of U.S. REDD+ fast start financing will be guided by the Copenhagen Accord, which recognizes the crucial role of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the need to enhance removals of greenhouse gas emissions by forests. Other landscapes with high mitigation potential, such as peatlands and wetlands, may also be addressed under this strategy. The United States has the following long-term objectives to guide U.S. agencies as they contribute to this REDD+ fast start financing effort:

Objective 1: REDD+ Architecture: Creating and supporting an efficient, effective, and coordinated international system to help countries deliver REDD+ outcomes.

Focus of architecture investments: The United States will support the creation of a framework that drives policies and programs with evidence of impact by generating, evaluating, and analyzing outcomes and providing coordinated, transparent, and effective financing and technical support to developing countries.

Objective 2: REDD+ Readiness: Helping countries become ready to participate in pay-for-performance programs and take complementary domestic actions.
Investments will help countries become ready at the national level to undertake actions at a scale that can significantly reduce emissions or increase sequestration, enable access to pay-for-performance financing, including future carbon markets, and meet ambitious domestic mitigation commitments.

Focus of readiness investments: The United States will provide national REDD+ readiness support to a balanced portfolio of types of countries and regions. We will focus bilateral efforts on those countries and regions where we have a comparative advantage and will coordinate selection with other donors and multilateral efforts so as to ensure that, collectively, we are able to achieve scale and impact. U.S. support will focus on countries a) with near-term market potential and significant mitigation potential, b) with high mitigation potential but that require more assistance to become market ready, and c) that are international leaders in REDD+ commitment and innovation.

Objective 3: REDD+ Demonstration: Achieving cost effective and sustainable net emissions reductions. Investments will support programs that achieve, or that demonstrate scalable approaches to achieving, significant, cost-effective net emissions reductions.

Focus of demonstration investments: In order to test and build on the approaches identified through REDD+ readiness efforts, the United States will seek to focus REDD+ demonstration investments in countries where governments have the political will and are also undertaking such efforts

1. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries.
2. Funding subject to appropriation by Congress
3. Negotiated at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in December 2009.