Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

FORPOL-01140; No of Pages 8

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Forest Policy and Economics

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Safeguards and Dangerguards: A Framework for Unpacking the Black Box of Safeguardsfor REDD+

Albert Abraham Arhin ⁎Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

⁎ Corresponding author at: Dept. of Geography, Univers3EN, United Kingdom. Tel.: +44 7586244445.

E-mail address: aaa72@cam.ac.uk.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2014.05.0031389-9341/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Arhin, A.A., SafeguaPolicy and Economics (2014), http://dx.doi.o

a b s t r a c t

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 11 October 2013Received in revised form 23 March 2014Accepted 13 May 2014Available online xxxx

Keywords:REDD+safeguardsforest policylocal communities

The idea and practice of safeguards – usually expressed as sets of environmental and social principles – havebecome integral components of the ongoing global policy efforts aimed at mitigating climate change throughthe mechanism of Reducing Emissions on Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+). Donors, civil societies,business organisations and other different bodies are investing resources on initiatives aimed to propagatedifferent guidelines and principles expected to be adopted, supported and promoted by national governmentsas safeguards. Yet, there is little research critically examining the different ideas, objectives and understandingsembedded in the term and their implications for the purpose for which safeguards are designed for. The aimof this paper is to contribute to the discourse on safeguards by presenting REDD+ Safeguard Spectrum, aframework which can be used to unpack the many faces of REDD+ safeguards to guide their application andoperationalization at national and local levels. Focusing largely on the social goals espoused under REDD+, thepaper characterises social safeguards of REDD+ into four categories—preventive, mitigative promotive andtransformative.

© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The term 'safeguards' for REDD+ (the mechanism for reducingemissions from deforestation and degradation plus conservation,sustainable forest management and enhancement of carbon stocks)has gained much currency among national governments, donors,private investors, civil society groups, the private sector and in academicliterature in recent years. The term 'safeguards,' which is increasinglybecoming a buzzword in forest and climate change literature, has nowbecome an integral component for planning, implementation andevaluation of the ongoing REDD+ (pilot) schemes and strategies.Although the World Bank and other international financial institutions(IFIs) have been using the term since at least the 1980s, its usage inthe forests, environment and climate change literature became popularover the past few years when debates on the benefits, costs and im-plications of REDD+ started in 2005.

The idea of REDD+ was proposed in 2005 primarily in response tothe growing recognition that forest loss was contributing to approxi-mately 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. REDD+ entered theinternational development landscape with a number of promises andpotentials: halting the pace of deforestation and bringing transforma-tional change in the forestry sector; generating large financial resourcesto manage forests; providing cheap, fast and efficient route to mitigate

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climate change; improving regulatory and forest governance frame-works; contributingmeaningfully to sustainable development and pov-erty reduction especially among forest-fringe communities (Parrottaet al., 2012; Brown et al., 2008; Angelsen et al., 2012; UNFCCC, 2011;Brockhaus and Angelsen, 2012). However, depending on how it isdesigned and implemented, several risks and potential negative con-sequences have also been identified in areas where REDD+ initiativeswill be implemented. These include but are not limited to displacement(Griffiths, 2008; Hall, 2010), exclusion from decision-making andparticipation in schemes (Dooley et al., 2011), lack of access to benefitspartly due to unclear land tenure (Larson, 2011; Ribot and Larson, 2012;Hall, 2010) and elite capture (Jumbe and Angelsen, 2006; Blom et al.,2010; Iversen et al., 2006).

Consequently, during its 16th Conference of Parties (COP 16) inCancun in 2010, parties of the UNFCCC agreed on set of principles—known as safeguards (henceforth the ‘Cancun safeguards’). Partieshave further agreed that REDD+ interventions be “implemented inthe context of sustainable development and reducing poverty, whileresponding to climate change” (UNFCCC, 2011: 26). During the COP19 in Poland in 2013, negotiators adopted the 'Warsaw Framework forREDD Plus', which entails seven main decisions about REDD+.The seven decisions made regarding REDD+ range from approvedtext on results based finance, technical decisions on monitoring andverification, and decisions on REDD+ safeguards. The decision onsafeguards at Warsaw requires that REDD+ countries should providea summary (report) of information about how safeguards are beingpromoted and supported every two years consistentwith theprovisions

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2 A.A. Arhin / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

for submissions of national communications (UNFCCC, 2014). The in-tention is that these safeguards should be respected and addressedby governments and donors pursuing REDD+ interventions to en-sure that their actions do not cause negative social or environmentalimpacts (UNFCCC, 2011). Building on the Cancun safeguards, there isnow a plethora of guidelines, standards and frameworks churningdifferent ways and ideas in the context of the ongoing pilot schemeson REDD+ to enable governments and project developers to achievebetter protection for local communities. Fundamentally, the differ-ent works on safeguards embrace laudable principles and wellintended social goals; but they contain contested ideas (e.g. sustain-able development, poverty reduction, respecting rights)—with eachof these ideas embodying different objectives of improving thelives of forest-fringe communities. Thus, while REDD+ safeguardscould have an intuitive appeal, the various ideas about workingwith and improving the lives of forest communities seemmuch con-flated. Some principles and criteria embody ‘do no harm’ ideas (e.g.minimise evictions). Other principles employ ‘do good’ ideas (e.g. in-creased participation in decision-making and enhancing benefits).Still others employ ideas of development involving transformationof local communities (e.g. poverty reduction and clarifying issues re-lated to tenure rights). This suggests a confusion and conflation ofdifferent objectives embodied in the concept of safeguards whichcould have dire implications on policy making and the various strat-egies designed for REDD+ interventions. As some researchers (e.g.Moss and Nussbaum, 2011) have argued, safeguards for REDD+appear to mean different things to different groups in different con-texts. Yet, there is little research critically examining the differentforms that safeguards could take or their implications for the objec-tives for which they are designed for. Thus far, much of the researchand analysis on safeguards have so far focused on assessment of thesocial and environmental principles espoused through these initia-tives (Roe et al., 2013; Moss and Nussbaum 2011; Mackenzie,2012; Merger et al. 2011; Stickler et al. 2013), the various actors pro-moting different forms of safeguards (McDermott et al., 2012), thelessons from past efforts relevant for application of safeguards(Ros-Tonen et al., 2013) or those providing synthesis of recent schol-arship the subjects (Chhatre et al., 2012). A careful analysis of theconflation of differing objectives contained in the black box of safe-guards has received very little attention to date. The different under-standings of what constitutes safeguards can lead to a variety ofinterpretations of the term which has a range of implications forREDD+ policy and practice.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discourse on safe-guards by presenting REDD+ Safeguard Spectrum (RSS), a frame-work which can be used to unpack the many faces of REDD+safeguards to guide their application and operationalization atnational and local levels. It focuses largely on the social goals ofREDD+ (rather than the environmental goals) and characterisesREDD+ safeguards into four categories—preventive, mitigative, pro-motive and transformative. The RSS can be used as a descriptiveframework as well as an analytical framework to structure dis-cussions on planning, implementation and understanding betterthe stylised outcomes of social safeguards for REDD+. This piece ofwork is directed primarily to policy-oriented researchers, civil socie-ties, donors and particularly national governments who are requiredto operationalize the different global safeguards that are currently atplay.

The rest of the paper proceeds in the following manner. In thenext section, an overview has been given about REDD+ and the dif-ferent initiatives on safeguards currently at play. The succeedingsection presents the RSS Framework using the key themes and so-cial goals enshrined in the ongoing works on safeguards as inputswith the subsequent section discussing the key elements of theframework. The last section ties the paper together through aconclusion.

Please cite this article as: Arhin, A.A., Safeguards and Dangerguards: A FramPolicy and Economics (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2014.05.0

2. REDD+ and (social) safeguards for REDD+: An overview

There is abundance of literature on the evolution of REDD+ idea andthe way safeguards have become a key component (Angelsen andMcNeil, 2012; McDermott et al., 2012; Pistorius, 2012; Ros-Tonenet al., 2013). The underlying idea of REDD+ is to provide positive finan-cial incentives to tropical countries to reduce emissions throughavoided deforestation and forest degradation, and at the same timecompensate these countries based on their performance, even thoughthe original concept has changed over time (Angelsen and McNeil,2012). While the REDD+ architecture within the UNFCCC is stillunder discussion, several initiatives and pilots numbering over 200(known as ‘readiness’) have been launched across the world (Cerbuet al., 2011). These include the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility(FCPF) and the Forest Investment Programme (FIP) supported by theWorld Bank, the UN-REDD initiative financed by the UNEP, UNDP andthe FAO and other bilateral schemes. Generally, these initiatives andassistance from donors and multilateral banks are assisting countriesto begin preparations to become “ready for REDD+”. As these effortson REDD+ pilot schemes progress, donors are making safeguards acondition and requirement for accessing funds supporting REDD+schemes; national governments are in one way or the other demon-strating their readiness in REDD+ schemes through institution of safe-guards; civil societies are critically examining the scope, strength andcontents of national level safeguards across countries; the private sectoris increasingly observing which safeguards are being instituted bydifferent countries to inform their investment decisions on REDD+.

Fundamentally, REDD+ safeguards (also known as safeguard sys-tems) cover a range of environmental and social issues, which includetransparent decision-making, participation by local and indigenouscommunities, the protection of vulnerable people, and the enhance-ment of social and environmental benefits. The Cancun safeguards gen-erally provide broad guiding principles. For REDD+ participatingcountries to qualify for the anticipated financing under the UNFCCC,they are expected to comply with the social and environmental issuesoutlined by the Cancun Safeguards as well as procedures stipulated bytheUNFCCCCOP decisions. However, considering that conclusive agree-ments on REDD+ have not been reached yet, the different multilateral,bilateral and private bodies supporting pilot projects (or readinessschemes) have designed a range of safeguard measures, standards andprinciples which they attach to their programmes. Countries interestedin implementing initiatives under the umbrella of REDD+ are thus re-quired to put the relevant principles into practice in their respectivecountries on the basis of their national circumstances.

TheWorld Bank for instancehas updated its Operational Policies andProcedures (WBOP) which are expected to be applied to activities fi-nanced under the FCPF, the FIP and other carbon projects supportedby the Bank. Besides, the Bank has also issued a number of guidelinessuch as the Common Approach to Safeguards and Standards (CASS),Guidelines for Stakeholder Engagement (GSE)which set out some prin-ciples and propositions to guide formulation of national policies to en-sure that REDD+ minimises risks and enhance benefits for locallivelihoods. The UN-REDD Programme, which is a collaborative exerciseby the FAO, UNEP and UNDP also, has a set of safeguards and standardsexpected to be promoted and respected by national governments seek-ing funds under the programme to implement REDD+ readiness activ-ities. The UN-REDDhas articulated its safeguards through the Social andEnvironmental Principles and Criteria (SEPC). Additionally, through amulti-stakeholder consultation process facilitated by the Communityand Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) and CARE International, The REDD+Social and Environmental Standards (REDD+ SES), have been devel-oped to support the design and implementation of government-ledREDD+ programs that respect the rights of local communities and In-digenous Peoples and generate significant social and environmentalbenefits. A number of private voluntary initiatives such as the VoluntaryCarbon Standards (VCS) and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity

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Table 1Broad overview of some safeguards and standards at play.

Multilateral Bilateral National/Sub-national Private

Brief Description Negotiated under theUNFCCC as well as programsimplemented by multilateralorganisations across countries

Conditions and rules included inagreements negotiated between REDD+countries or public entities

Standards set out for forestcarbon off-sets undernational or sub-nationalemission trading schemes

Standards developed by NGOs,private sector or different bodies

Jurisdictional FCPF, FIP, GEF,UN-REDD Germany’s agreements under theEarly Movers programme, Norway’sbilateral agreements Indonesia–AustraliaForest Carbon Partnership

The REDD+ SES, the Verified CarbonStandards Jurisdictional andNested REDD+ (VCS JNR)

Project-level CDM standards, IFCPerformance standards

Offsets under the AustralianCarbon Farming Initiative (CFI),

Climate Action Reserve (CAR),American Carbon Registry,CCB Standards, Social Carbon, Plan Vivo

Source: Roe et al. (2013).

3A.A. Arhin / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Safeguards (CCBS) also exist to be applied to carbon offset projects in-cluding REDD+. An overview of the different initiatives on standardsand safeguards as well the range of the social goals emphasised insome of the growing works on safeguards and standards for REDD+has been summarised in Tables 1 and 2 respectively.

As it has been seen from Table 1, the notion of safeguards embracesvery laudable ideas spanning from those on ‘do no harm’ ideas (e.g.minimise evictions and resettlements), through to ‘do good’ ideas (e.g.increased participation in decision-making and enhancing benefits)and even those on transformation of (livelihoods for) local communities(e.g. poverty reduction and addressing and addressing issues of tenureand resource rights). While the growing number of standards, guide-lines, measures, criteria and principles (used interchangeably to referto safeguards) is useful, it appears very little attention has been paidto the slippery nature that the term is becoming.Without a careful anal-ysis that sets these issues out, there is a great danger for policy-makersand project developers to emphasize on particular sets of ideas whichmay actually not be compatible. It is on this basis that a frameworkthat disaggregates and unpacks the normative goals espoused by theconcept is needed. The next section proposes one of such—theREDD+ Safeguard Spectrum (or RSS Framework).

3. REDD+ Safeguards Spectrum: A framework for unpacking themany faces of REDD+

The previous sections have argued that the notion of safeguards forREDD+ seems intuitively clear, but remains poorly defined andmeans different things to different people. Here, we argue thatsafeguards for REDD+ can be disaggregated into four different formsor categories. These are preventive safeguards, mitigative safeguards,promotive safeguards and transformative safeguards. Such dis-aggregation can be a useful way of viewing safeguards for REDD+during the planning, implementation and assessment of their potentialoutcomes on local communities. Thiswork draws on the various themessummarised in Table 1 and the broader literature on REDD+ as well asconflated concepts such as participation (Arnstein, 1969; InternationalAssociation of Public Participation) and ideas on resilience (e.g.Pelling, 2010). TheFramework is representedgraphically hereunderandfollowed with brief explanations and discussion of the key categories(Fig. 1).

3.1. Preventive Safeguards

There are five sets of activities formally (to be) recognised asREDD+ project: reducing emissions from deforestation, reducingemissions from degradation, forest conservation, sustainable forestmanagement and enhancement of carbon stock (UNFCCC, 2011). It iswell reported that past strategies for achieving similar outcomes havehad inevitable social and economic impacts including displacement of

Please cite this article as: Arhin, A.A., Safeguards and Dangerguards: A FramPolicy and Economics (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2014.05.0

communities, forced eviction, military brutalisation of local communi-ties, loss of non-consumptive use of values such as places of worship,loss of rights and use of resources and foreclosure of rights to futureuse (McElwee, 2006; Chatty and Colchester, 2002; Adams and Hutton,2007). Literature is not short of the direct impact of these negativeconsequences on livelihoods of communities including deprivation, im-poverishment, landlessness, homelessness, economic marginalisationand joblessness (Cernea and Schmidt-Soltau, 2003; Brockington, 2002;Adams et al., 2004).

It is understood that safeguards for REDD+are being designed in re-lation to similar risks which have mirrored past conservation efforts.Preventive social safeguards are those principles, standards, criteriaand propositions which seek to ‘do no harm’ to local communities.The primary aim, whether explicitly defined or not, is to prevent oravert significant deprivation as a result of implementation of REDD+.Such measures would tend to place more importance on avoiding spe-cific strategies or approaches that can significantly ‘harm’ or put localcommunities in an extremely vulnerable situation. By their character,preventive safeguards are therefore designed to prevent a particularrisk or undesirable consequence from occurring. Examples of preven-tive safeguards include designing specific strategies for REDD+ toprevent consequences such as forced eviction, landlessness, displace-ment and exclusion of local communities from use of resources suchas non-timber forests products (NTFPs). Preventive safeguards are theminimum requirements for REDD+ strategies (Jagger et al., 2012).

3.2. Mitigative safeguards

The trade-offs and synergy between conservation efforts and socialgoals have long been acknowledged in literature (Hirsch et al., 2011;Adams and Hulme, 2001; Chomitz et al., 2007). There are severalinstances where strategies and interventions for achieving the carbonand social goals of the REDD+ cannot completely avoid ‘harm’. Forexample, eviction or displacement of communities could be the mostfeasible strategy that has to be adopted in certain contexts if the con-servation and carbon goals enshrined in REDD+ would have to beachieved.

Closely linked to preventive safeguards are mitigative forms of safe-guards. Mitigative social safeguard are those principles, criteria andinitiatives which seek to mitigate and/or minimize the negative distri-butional impact of REDD+ on local communities and their livelihoods.They can also take the form of relieving the impact of the risks or nega-tive consequences once theyhave occurred.Mitigating safeguardsmovediscussion beyond preventing a particular risk to a stage where plansand interventions are executed to minimize those risks likely to mani-fest the implementation of REDD+. Whereas preventive measures re-duce the probability of the risk from occurring, mitigative safeguardsreduce the potential impact if the risk were to occur. Examples of miti-gative safeguards commonly found in the current REDD+ safeguards

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Table 2Key themes and social goals emphasised as safeguards for REDD+.Source: (FCPF, 2011; FCPF and UNREDD, 2010; FCPF and UN-REDD, 2011; Peskett andTodd, 2013; UN-REDD, 2012; Roe et al., 2013; Mackenzie, 2012; International Bank forReconstruction and Development, 2010; Campese, 2011; CCBA, 2008; REDD+ SES,2012; Climate Investment Funds, 2009; Global Environment Facility, 2011).

CancunSafeguards

FCPF FIP UN–REDD(Mar2012)

GEF REDD+SES

(Vers. 2)

CCBStandards(Vers. 2)

VCS(v. 3.3)

Protectingrights ofvulnerableandmarginalizedgroups suchas indigenouspeople

(2c) (S.4) –

Supportingtenure andresourcerights ofcommunities

– – (G5)

Acquiringfree priorand informedconsent fromlocal andindigenouscommunities

* – (s.4) G5 –

Enhancinglivelihoodsthroughincomegenerationand capacity

– (Charter) – (CM1)

Full andeffectiveparticipationof relevantstakeholders

(2d) (para 31) – (G3)

Sharing ofBenefits

– (s.4) (CM1) –

Avoidedresettlement

– – – (G5) –

Grievancemechanismto addressconflicts andconcerns

– (s.3) (G3)

(Charter, WB OP

(4.10 andGSE)

(DGM–IP and Para

30 of Investment

Criteria)

(Criterion7 and 8)

(principles1,2,3,6)

(G3 andGL2)

(v. 3.3)

(criterion1.1–1.4)

(DD para 12 and 39)

(GSE and OP4.10 )

(2c and2d)

(Criterion9)

(criterion1.3)

(v.3.3)

(criterion3.1 and

3.2)

(Principle3 and

criterion13)

(Para 13 ofDD; para 27 of IC)

(GSE, OP. 4.01, 4.10and 4.12)

(s.1para14)

(criterion6.1–6.6)

(JNRv.3.0)

(criteria2.1–2.2)

X(Criterion

12)

(para 27 ofIC)

(OP 4.10)

(OP 4.12)

(criterion10)

(criterion1.3)

v.3.3andJNR3.0

(criterion6.4)

(Criterion1)

(para 21cand d)

(GSE, GGRM )

Transparentgovernanceand decision–making

(2d) – X v.3(criteria4.1–4.4)

(criterion3)

(CASS,GSE and

GDI)

Policies,laws andregulationsshould beconsistentwithinternationaland nationalpolicies

(2a) (para 30) (G5) v.3.3(Principle

1)(para11)

(principle7)

*Although FCPF Guidelines do not explicitly mandate FPIC, it claims to support it if thecountry has ratified ILO 169, adopted national legislation on FPIC or if another partnerapplies the principle.Key and AcronymsShaded area = where expressed (and implied) references have been made to the keyissues highlighted on the left column.CCBS: Community, Climate and Biodiversity StandardsCharter: FCPF Charter.CM: Community Section of the CCBS.DD-FIP: Design Document.DGM-IP: Dedicated Grant Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and Local communities.FIP-IC: FIP Investment Criteria and Financing Modalities.G3: Project Design and Goals section of the CCBS.G5: General section on legal status and property rights of the CCBS.GDI: Guidelines on Disclosure Information.GGRM-FCPF: Guidelines for establishingGrievance and RedressMechanism at the countrylevel.GSE-FCPF and UN-REDD: Guidelines on Stakeholder Engagement in REDD+.JNR: Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ Requirement of the Voluntary Carbon Standards.OP: World Bank Operational Policy.V.3.3: VCS Standard version 3.VCS: Voluntary Carbon Standard.

4 A.A. Arhin / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Please cite this article as: Arhin, A.A., Safeguards and Dangerguards: A FramPolicy and Economics (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2014.05.0

initiatives include resettlement of displaced communities, compensat-ing affected individuals and local communities, granting of partial userights of NTFPs. Mitigative safeguards can also be termed coping safe-guards because they enable affected individuals, local communitiesand entities to cope with the ‘harm’ of REDD+ in the short-term.

3.3. Promotive safeguards

Many authors have drawn attention to the fact that REDD+ is notlikely to succeed – or gain the needed legitimacy it needs to succeed –

unless it focuses on improving livelihoods and welfare of people(Brown et al., 2008; Kelly, 2010; Hall, 2010). A number of the variousprinciples on safeguards currently at play emphasise that not onlyshould REDD+ ‘do no harm’ but it should also proactively ‘do good’ topromote the long termenvironmental and social benefits such as pover-ty reduction of REDD+ (Roe et al., 2013).

Promotive safeguards are those principles, criteria and interventionswhose emphasis is largely geared towards promoting or enhancing op-portunities as well as spaces for forest people and communities to con-tribute to decision-making, improve on their livelihood and benefitfrom the REDD+ scheme. Promotive safeguards assert full rights andresponsibilities rather than making changes in the prevailing socio-politico regime that affect marginalization and exclusion. They are sim-ply about 'doing something better' from the business-as-usual withoutchallenging underlying beliefs, assumptions and the narratives underly-ing them. They are not necessarily transformative in nature but they canprovide a spring-board in the short term for people to move towardstransformation in the long term. Examples may include promotingparticipation of communities and indigenous people in policy making;promoting accountability and transparency in forest management;instituting or promoting practices that reduce elite capture.

The differences between promotive safeguards and transformationalones may not always be clear-cut. There are several overlaps. It is therelative emphasis on the structural causes, scale and ideas of dealingwith the perverse practices and perceived negative consequences ofREDD+ implementation such as marginalisation, exclusion and unfairbenefits that distinguishes transformative safeguards from promotivesafeguards. This paper understands promotive safeguards as thosethat focus on doing something better without challenging underlyingbeliefs, assumptions and the narratives underlying them. They are lim-ited in scope and scale and can easily be reversible to the 'undesirableold ways'. Transformative Safeguards on the other hand focus on funda-mental changes in institutional arrangements, priorities, and norms in awaywhich is quite different from the business-as-usual.What separatesthe promotive safeguards from transformative safeguards has thereforebeen their relative emphasis on shifting practices and norms of 'doinggood' for the REDD+ implementation. The relative focus on the abilityof the safeguards, standards, norms for shifting discourses and practicesaway from business as usual informed the separation of these twosafeguards.

For instance, whereas promoting 'full and effective participation' ofbroad actors in a hitherto state-led policy environment can be veryempowering for communities, it falls short of addressing the fundamen-tal reasons why people have not been participating and hence the needto institutionalise participation through for example change in policyapproach, culture and practices. Part of the reasons may be ideologicalor even policy culture. Transformative safeguards on the other handwould emphasise on changing or reforming 'what is it' (i.e. the structur-al causes) that have made 'communities' not participating in the forestpolicy process. Such safeguards are framed to give strong emphasis onchanging perceptions, ideas and institutionalising why promoting fulland effective participation is beneficial for REDD+. Further example isthat whereas promotive safeguards would assert inclusion of equitablebenefit-sharing to guide the implementation of REDD+, transformativesafeguards would rather assert principles or standards that seekto change the conditions/factors which have been marginalising

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Fig. 1. The RSS Framework.

5A.A. Arhin / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

communities from obtaining benefits from forest policies (e.g. themuch-cited reforms on tenure and unfavourable power relations).

3.4. Transformative Safeguards

There is increasing recognition that REDD+ should bring abouttransformational change—one that requires a radical shift frombusiness-as-usual policies and practice towards new sets of approachesthat better result in forest protection and protection of interests localcommunities (Brockhaus and Angelsen, 2012; Biermann et al., 2012;Brockhaus et al., 2013). Literature on forestry and early works onREDD+ pilots has highlighted that lip service to forest peoples’ rightsand local benefit sharing, weak consultations and participation indecision-making, elite capture and state ownership and control overforest lands are very persistent in the sector (Jumbe and Angelsen,2006; Blom et al., 2010; Iversen et al., 2006; Dooley et al., 2011;

Please cite this article as: Arhin, A.A., Safeguards and Dangerguards: A FramPolicy and Economics (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2014.05.0

Larson and Ribot, 2007)—and can constitute business-as-usual practicesif they continue persisting in the REDD+ landscape. The fact that safe-guards are introduced in the REDD+ debate and discourse to addressthese issues is well reported in literature (Mackenzie, 2012; Jaggeret al., 2012) (Dooley et al., 2011; Griffiths, 2008).

There remains therefore a strong sense in the current understandingand approaches of REDD+ that, a more radical transformation of sever-al aspects of existing forestry policies and practice including social rela-tions, institutional practices and capacity gaps which cause socialexclusion, marginalisation and unequal access and control of benefitsaccruing from natural resources is necessary if REDD+ is to succeed.

Writing about REDD+safeguards andwhat they termed, the doublestandard of forest policies, Ribot and Larson (2012) make a strong casethat poverty, marginalization and exclusion – in their various forms –experienced by forest fringe communities are produced by the very pol-icies that enable some to profit (from timber, firewood and charcoal and

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in the future carbon) and others to lose out. They argue further that for-estry policiesmust be radically reworked to counterbalancewidespreadregressive policies and structural asymmetries. It is this focus of radical-ly reworking forest policies to ensure that communities do not lose outfrom the processes, benefits and outcomes of REDD+ which providesthe grounds for transformative safeguards.

Those safeguards, principles, criteria, standards and interventionsthat emphasize on radical shift in discourse, narratives and approachesseeking to reverse social exclusion, strengthen the bargaining power ofindividuals and local communities, contributing greatly to livelihoodsimprovement and poverty reduction, institutionalize benefit-sharingarrangements that give greater access and control to communities arewhat we have termed transformative safeguards. Transformative safe-guards focus on the broader political economy (Pelling, 2010) andseek to challenge the wider social, political and economic incentiveswhich have contributed to marginalization and exclusion of forest peo-ple and communities for example from participation and benefit-sharing. They aim to radically alter narratives and power relations in away that give greater control to communities to make decisions andbenefit from the REDD+ scheme.

Transformative safeguards can thus play essential roles towards therealization of the broader transformational change agenda expectedunder REDD+. Examples of transformative safeguards which we ob-serve in the current safeguards at play include changing land and treetenure laws to give greater tenure security for communities; redefiningand institutionalising greater involvement of local communities in theplanning and decisions on forests at all levels, developing benefit-sharing schemes which give greater control to communities, puttingpoverty reduction at the heart of the REDD+ strategies and projects,empowering communities to take initiatives to manage natural re-sources, investing in expansion of assets of local communities.

4. Linking analysis to action: a discussion of the RSS Framework

As international, national and local efforts of REDD+ progress, safe-guards have become an integral part in the REDD+ discourse. Differentclaims on the importance of safeguards aremade including ensuring fullparticipation, facilitating poverty reduction, addressing tenure to men-tion just few. The central contention of this paper is that great caremust be taken over both using and interpreting the term safeguardsfor REDD+. The paper recognises that the planning, design, implemen-tation and evaluation of safeguards for REDD+ are likely to result inmany possible pathways, aligned with visions and values, risks, powerand benefits across social groups. The RSS Framework identifies fourpossible pathways likely to be associated with implementation of safe-guard policies, namely, preventing risks, mitigating risks, promotinggood practices and offeringpathway for transformation of local commu-nities in the way they engage, manage and benefit from forest policyinterventions.

The RSS framework is essentially a matrix identifying the variousforms or the four categories of safeguards. It further shows the increa-sing level of protection and spaces for enhancing benefits for forestpeople and communities as one progresses from ‘preventive’ to ‘trans-formative’. The framework can be used as a descriptive framework aswell as an analytical framework to structure discussions on planning,implementation and assessments of safeguards for REDD+.

The aim of the RSS framework is to emphasize REDD+safeguards asa multi-layered process which can potentially conceal or deny opportu-nities for pathways that could address the fundamental factors contrib-uting to marginalization of local communities from benefiting from theREDD+ scheme. The salient point of the framework is that, the range ofoptions, strategies and approaches to be implemented as safeguards toachieve the social goals of REDD+ could lead to at least four differentoutcomes: preventive, mitigative, promotive and transformative. Eachoutcome, or combination of outcomes, has differential implications onthe livelihoods and non-carbon goals expected to be achieved under

Please cite this article as: Arhin, A.A., Safeguards and Dangerguards: A FramPolicy and Economics (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2014.05.0

REDD+. Generally, the RSS can therefore be used to assess how safe-guards are operating in practice. It provides a lens for assessingwhetheran organization or project developers that claim to be facilitatingpoverty reduction or empowerment of forest-fringe communities, forinstance, are really delivering in practice but not (as an example)employing a more do-no-harm approach.

The RSS framework recognizes that all the four outcomes or path-ways are legitimate goals in their own rights. What is important isthat national governments or REDD+ project proponents and devel-opers should clearly define what goals they intend to achieve with theinstitution of safeguards. Thus, the RSS framework argues that the plan-ning and assessment of safeguards should always be qualified by refer-ence to the purpose or aims that particular safeguards are designed for:whether they aim to prevent a risk, mitigate a risk, promote norms or tobring about transformation.

Notwithstanding, it is very implicit in the framework that, as safe-guards for REDD+ move through the spectrum from the left to right –preventive to transformative – there is a corresponding increase inmoving away from business-as-usual practices (e.g. unfair benefit shar-ing, exclusion from decision making etc.) towards transformationalchange as far as achieving the social goals of REDD+ are concerned(e.g. workable benefit-sharing arrangements that positively favourcommunities etc.). In this regard, it would still be important for nationalactors and project developers to shift away from implementing preven-tive andmitigative-driven safeguards (which are risk-focused) towardsthe promotive and transformative ones (which are rights-focused).Rather than given extensive attention for safeguard measures thatseeks to retroactively minimise the impacts of REDD+ risks, projectdevelopers should focus on the broader political economy, economicand the socio-cultural factors that drive exclusion, for example fromdecision-making and equitable benefit sharing. Such focus can be animportant strategy to drive better protection of the interests of localcommunities in the REDD+ arena.

The RSS Framework – and the categories espoused – also makes acase for spatial targeting, so that certain areas with high proportion ofpoor and socially-disadvantaged populations co-locatedwith a high for-est cover can become targets for the preventive safeguards due to highrisk of social costs. On the other hand, areas with presence of strong so-cial movements or Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) influenc-ing policies in favour of communities are better candidates for thepromotive and/or transformative safeguards.

Again, the type of REDD+ interventions envisaged,whether it is justa project or broad policy reforms can partially determine what catego-ries of safeguards can be applied. For instance, short-term projectsexpecting to get certification from standards such as the CCBS would(beyond preventive and/or mitigative as the case may be) normallyfocus more on promotive safeguards due to the limited scale of the im-pact of such projects. Here, it stretches the imagination to think of howfor instance security of tenure could figure into this scheme as a trans-formative safeguard due to the limited scale of such impact. In contrast,national government REDD+ programmes with its focus on broad pol-icy reforms (Angelsen et al., 2012) and large scale implementationshould normally focus on not just promotive safeguards (to do good),but also transformative safeguards (to shift practices and address struc-tural causes of exclusion). In this case, large-scale clarification andgranting of security of tenure under the ongoing national REDD+efforts (such as those of FCPF and UN-REDD+) appear more to a trans-formative safeguard.

5. Conclusion

National systems for implementing social safeguards are expected toensure that REDD+ interventionswill support or promote the interestsof local communities. The Cancun REDD+ safeguards provide aninitial set of goals for the safeguards information systems required forcountries choosing to participate in future REDD+ scheme. Donors,

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multilateral institutions, civil society organisations and private bodiesare undertaken different initiatives to align their interests to the Cancunsafeguardswhile highlighting range of environmental, social and gover-nance issues which should be integrated into national systems on safe-guards to achieve the expected transformational change under REDD+.

Recognising the inadequate frameworks to support these efforts,this paper has sought to provide an analytical framework – labelledhere as REDD+ Safeguard Spectrum – to unpack the various principles,initiatives, measures and interventions being designed as safeguards tobe supported, promoted and implemented to achieve the social goals ofREDD+. The RSS framework emphasizes REDD+safeguards as amulti-layered process that needs clear unpacking in order not to potentiallyconceal or deny opportunities for pathways that could address the fun-damental factors contributing to marginalization of local communitiesfrom benefiting from the REDD+ scheme. Consequently, it arguesthat safeguards to achieve the social goals of REDD+ could be catego-rized into four components or outcomes: preventive,mitigative, promo-tive and transformative. Each category or combination of them, hasdifferential implications on the livelihoods and non-carbon goals ex-pected to be achieved under REDD+.

The framework recognises that the four elements can be legitimatepathways of safeguards in their own right. The different ways throughwhich initiatives on safeguards are operationalized, gain legitimacy,and exert influence at the domestic level are also an important issuethat may play a role in their ability to be preventive, mitigative, pro-motive or transformative. What is therefore important is that nationalgovernments or REDD+ project proponents and developers shouldclearly define what goals they intend to achieve with the institution ofsafeguards. Nevertheless, it holds the view that, there is a correspondingincrease in the depth and width of the protection for local communitiesas safeguards move away from preventive andmitigative forms (whichare risk-focused) towards promotive and transformative forms (whichare rights focused). The underlying objective of this article has been tostimulate a broader debate of the RSS framework and so refinementand further development from both researchers and practitioners arewelcomed.

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