CÔTE D’IVOIRE

PROGRESS AGAINST THE WARSAW FRAMEWORK

NS/AP: The National REDD+ Strategy (2017) and the subsequent REDD+ Investment Plan (2019) informed the ongoing NDC review process in which UN-REDD agencies play key advisory roles. An initial draft of the NDC revision, in which forest solutions have a prominent place, has been established and shared with stakeholders.

FREL/FRL: The submission of the revised and updated version of the FREL has been put on hold, in agreement with national coordination, to match carbon standards that are most likely to provide RBPs.

NFMS: In a partnership with the GEF CBIT-Forest project, the different components of the NFMS, established under the UN-REDD Programme, have been assessed through several consultations, increasing visibility of the NFMS among national and international stakeholders. The NFMS has initiated the first systematic inventory of activity data for the GHG inventory under the AFOLU sector.

SIS: Côte d’Ivoire produced its first SOI in 2019, collected data to feed the database in 2020 and in 2021, supported the design of the webpage and collected data for a potential next SOI.

REDD+ IMPLEMENTATION

Forest solutions realized. As mentioned above, the scheduled revision and submission of the activity data and FREL have been put on hold, in agreement with the national coordination to match carbon standards that are most likely to provide RBPs. The MRV system specifically extended the analysis of land cover change to the entire AFOLU sector, including sampling design, auxiliary data to augment robustness of classification and development of interpretation key, and engaged in the first systematic campaign to update activity data for the GHG inventory to be finailzed in early 2022. This activity enables the leveraging of high-resolution Planetscope data made available through the NICFI program and actively involves post-graduate students from the University Felix Houphouët-Boigny.

Building on successful experiences from the implementation of zero-deforestation agricultural production jurisdictional approaches in the regions of Cavally and Belier, UN-REDD supported the dialogue process between the Government of Cote d’Ivoire and the European Union on deforestation-free cocoa production and trade and sharing groundbreaking lessons learned from the field. Similarly, UN-REDD supported the capacity building of the ARCI (Association of Regions and Districts of Côte d’Ivoire) on REDD+ jurisdictional approaches and the mobilization of funding to address deforestation from agricultural production within the framework of the political dialogue between the Government of Côte d’Ivoire and the European Union.

UN-REDD equally supported the Ministry of Forests to develop a national action plan for sustainable cocoa production and agroforestry called White Book for Sustainable Cocoa Production. This was later used as a foundation for discussions with the European Union.

Forest solutions rewarded. Continuous technical support has been provided to the SEP-REDD in drafting and submitting the decree regulating REDD+ investments to the Government, focusing on ER rights considerations. The UN-REDD technical team was part of the national legal taskforce that met virtually on several occasions to discuss the contents of the draft decree and to provide technical support through a presentation highlighting the relevance of regulating carbon rights to enhance REDD+ climate finance.

In addition, as part of the UN-REDD Programme workplan in 2021, UN-REDD collaborated with the law firm, White & Case, in analysing legal and carbon rights contexts in 19 countries. This included generating relevant information to be reflected in technical publications in 2022 and serving to assist future carbon financing schemes for the forest sector. The country’s legal reports are based on a desk review of existing legal and institutional frameworks to determine the ownership of the forest carbon rights and the identification of a potential REDD+ emissions reductions administrator and/or potential REDD+RBPs beneficiaries. The legal reports, with updated legal information, will inform a global comparative study on carbon rights to be published by the UN-REDD Programme. In 2021, a blog was published in the UN-REDD portal aimed at explain the implications of carbon rights, available here.

Several technical sessions were held with the national coordination to discuss opportunities to access carbon finance regarding the ART-TREES carbon standard.

Forest solutions enhanced. UN-REDD is supporting the Government of Côte d’Ivoire for a timely official submission of the revised NDC to UNFCCC Secretariat. UN-REDD is supporting the development of the revised NDC implementation plan with a focus on financing modalities in respect to forest solutions, including consolidation of inputs from different technical working groups and partner institutions and more importantly, integration of forest solutions and REDD+ plans. For example, in respect to climate change mitigation, the revised NDC includes two unconditional forest solutions (M35: reduce deforestation rate by 70 percent from 2015 baseline by 2030; M36: convert 1 million hectares of land into forests by 2030) and one conditional forest solution (M37: convert 300,000 hectares of land into forests by 2030). These forest solutions represent the largest mitigation potential (-34.65% for unconditional and -150.18% for both) from all sectors.

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

Similar to the year prior, the continued COVID-19 pandemic continued to disrupt national and field processes throughout 2021, as well as the ability of the UN-REDD Programme to provide timely and qualitative technical assistance to the country. No in-country missions were carried out by the programme. Nevertheless, the country remained active in its endeavours, and UN-REDD used digital means and in-country experts to keep the abovementioned streams active. Adding to this challenge, the national coordinator was dismissed at end of 2021 and has not yet been replaced.

GENDER AND SOCIAL INCLUSION

The safeguards information gathered in 2021 included inputs on UNFCCC and REDD+ commitments to gender equality, including information about the criterion for gender equitable decision-making, as well as its corresponding indicator as per the REDD+ framework that includes procedures to ensure the effective participation in decision-making and equitable benefits sharing between men and women. In addition, gender-disaggregated information was presented where available.

The development of integrated forest-cocoa jurisdictional strategies in the Cavally and Bélier regions, which is partially supported by a GCFTF project, included gender mainstreaming efforts that built on UN-REDD gender knowledge and methods. Rural women and women’s organizations were among the key stakeholders who contributed to such jurisdictional strategies. The socially inclusive model was praised by regional governments and by civic and community stakeholders alike, and knowledge products to disseminate the approach are underway.

PARTNERSHIPS

UN-REDD works in partnership with different organizations, entities and country partners, including the EUREDD Facility, the GCFTF initiative, the World Bank, the GCF, the Cocoa & Forest Initiative, among others. UN-REDD provides tailored technical assistance to help the country in their policy commitments (e.g. NDCs), mobilize partners and finance and test innovations and pilot initiatives.

LINKAGES TO SDGS

The ensemble of work on the cocoa-forest nexus, including deforestation-free farming, economically sound agroforestry models and forest-ecosystem restoration plans has helped the country advance substantially in several SDGs in an integrated manner, including SDG 12, 13, 15 and 17. Through the PROMIRE project activities, as well as the ERP jurisdictional program, Côte d’Ivoire will significantly advance on SDG 15.3.1.