NewGo!: evaluating impact of REDD+ interventions

Why is a literature review needed?

• REDD+ and FLEGT represent today two prominent approaches of global forest governance.
• However, relatively few efforts of reviewing the vast REDD+ literature with respect to its environmental and socioeconomic impacts have been carried out so far.
• This review will therefore contribute to a stocktaking of research around REDD+ and similar interventions. It will also offer both policy recommendations and questions for future research around forest governance.

One of the research activities under NewGo! involves a systematic review of the scientific knowledge and the lessons from REDD+, specifically the evidence for the impacts on forest loss and ecosystem quality, as well as livelihoods. A clear baseline for what would have happened hypothetically without the REDD+ intervention (a ‘counterfactual’) is required in any assessment to understand if REDD+ has succeeded or failed in reaching its goals. Therefore, NewGo! will review the available scientific evidence for environmental and socioeconomic impacts of REDD+ and similar interventions.

This review will cover the studies using experimental and quasi-experimental methods to allow for a scientific attribution of observed impacts to the REDD+ interventions. We will try to find out to which extent variable degrees of success in REDD+ interventions on the ground can be attributed to contextual factors such as low a priori deforestation pressures versus design and implementation. As the result of the review, we will produce a report on stocktaking of REDD+ exercises in 2022.

Photo: EU FLEGT and REDD facilities